Is Breast Cancer On The Rise Because Of Our Genes?
The rate of breast cancer in women is exploding and has become a global phenomenon. Contrary to conventional wisdom breast cancer is actually not genetic but rather a MAN-MADE disease! You see, as a result of the new science of epigenetics we now know that how our genes are expressed in our body is determined by our lifestyle. Even the feared BCRA1 gene that Angelina Jolie carries is not the cause of this increase in cancer. Women with the BCRA1 gene do have an 80-87% higher risk of breast cancer, however, research shows that if a woman lives a healthy lifestyle that gene never gets “turned on” and is never expressed as cancer. Angelina did not make a “Brave Choice” when she had a double mastectomy, she made an “Uninformed Choice.”
In 2009, scientists in Quebec, Canada, transformed our understanding of the genetic causes of breast and prostate cancers. The genes of cancer aren’t really defective parts of our biological machinery, which condemn us to disease. On the contrary: like the ghosts of our ancestors, they may only be “hungry spirits” of a sort, which manifest violently when they are not appropriately fed.
At the University of Montreal, a team headed by Dr. Parviz Ghadirian, studied women who carried the BRCA-1 gene, the gene that terrifies so many women, because over 80 percent of carriers of this gene risk developing breast cancer during their lifetimes. Many women who have received this news have preferred to have both breasts amputated rather than live with the near certainty that they will fall sick at some point.
However, Ghadirian and his team observed that the risk seemed to diminish very sharply for some women who carried the BRCA gene. What was their amazing discovery? They discovered that the more fruits and vegetables eaten by these genetically “at-risk” women, the less risk they had of developing cancer. Those women who consumed up to 27 different fruits and vegetables a week (a large variety) diminished their risk by 73 percent!
Ghadirian, P. et al, “Breast cancer risk in relation to the joint effect of BRCA mutations and diet diversity” Breast Cancer Research & Treatment, 23 December 2009
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