Breast Cancer Warden

Etsy is an up and coming online marketplace for makers of handmade articles. Only 4 years old, it has become the favorite destination of shoppers who like to buy unique, made-by-hand things as opposed to those made in sweatshops.

Some of the kind sellers on this wonderful website have started a movement called “Project Embrace” where some portion of proceeds of each sale on Etsy will be donated to the American Cancer Society, click here for the forum post where this movement originated. If you plan to buy from items participating under this project just add the search term “etsyprojectembrace” with other particulars while searching on etsy. Click here to view all participating items.

If you have started a similar project in your local community / website / etc feel free to write to me and I will feature it on this blog.

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TIME recently published a breast cancer ‘heat map’ (link) mapping countries around the world according to their respective breast cancer incidence rates.

One of the things we observed on this map was that India and China have one of the lowest breast cancer incidence rates (19.1 and 18.7 per 100,000 people respectively). There would be several explainations to this, including regional factors, genetic makeup in the demography, etc

There is one more thing which sets apart India and China from rest of the countries in this demography which could be a possible reason for low breast cancer occurence rates compared to other similar countries - Regular usage of turmeric in daily foods. Turmeric regularly features in Indian and Chinese recipes, especially in its powdered form and its intake in India and China is higher than in any other country.

A 2005 study conducted by University of Texas on rats concluded that curcumin, an antioxdant found in turmeric, is effective in curbing the spread of cancer to other areas of the body and highlights its potential as an anti-cancer agent. Other studies have also found curmucin effective against Alzheimer’s disease.

For those wondering how to intake this otherwise bitter tasting spice, we have discovered an Indian recipe site which has a couple of turmeric recipes - Honey Turmeric and Turmeric Milk.

If you have more info/recipes to share on turmeric please comment below.

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While it is an established fact that Estrogen is responsible for development of Cancer, a study by University of California, San Diego has linked that Estrogen to recurrence of breast cancer as well.

Anti-estrogen durgs like tamoxifen have not been observed to be an end-all solution, since this pilot group for this study included a proportion of women who were on tamoxifen.

Some of the tips to keep your estrogen levels low: Read the rest of this entry »

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Spinach Juice

Ingredients:

5 carrots
10 spinach leaves
4 lettuce leaves
1/4 turnip

Wash and just juice everthing together.

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Spinach Salad With Strawberries

INGREDIENTS:
25-30 fresh spinach leaves.
1 1/2 to 2 cups cleaned and sliced strawberries.
1/8 teaspoon each onion and garlic powder
Salt to taste

PREPARATION:
Toss spinach with sliced strawberries. Add spices and toss lightly.

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Although Men are 100-150 times less likely to be diagnosed with breast cancer, it can not completely be written off.

Are all men at risk?

Below we outline men more likely to be diagnosed due to certain characteristics, but there are things like radiation exposure, etc which are not in control of individuals and as such all men are at risk.

Some studies say men at risk are primarily those in the ages 60 and above.

Obese men are much more likely to develop breast cancer.

Men with heavy intake of alcohol and those with liver diseases are also at risk

Estrogen therepy is used for treatment of prostate cancer and this increases the chances of breast cancer. Estrogens are also heavily used as a hormonal treatment as a part of sex change procedures for men, this significantly increases the chances of breast cancer.

Men who come from families where significant number of women have been diagnosed also stand a higher risk.

Word of Advice

Although it may seem like a “disease of the women”, breast cancer can occur in men too. Any abnomality/lump observed by men in the neighbourhood of their breast area should not be ignored and medical advice should be taken at the earliest.

If you are a male breast cancer patient/survivor, do not feel embarassed about it; because of factors like excessive radiation exposure it can happen to perfectly normal men too.

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Tremendous amount of research has been done on whether vitamin E reduces breast cancer risk or not. Ninety percent of the studies have shown that its antioxidant properties do help in reducing the risk of developing breast cancer or reocccurence and the rest show no risk reduction at all. But till today there has been no report which shows that it increases the breast cancer incidence.The bottom line is -”When taken in moderate doses, vitamin E has no side effects”.
Keeping in mind, the beneficial effects of viamin E, we thought we will add nutrient recipes rich in vitamin E food regularly.

Here is our first recipe to kick off our mission:

Spinach Soup Recipe

Ingredients:
Spinach (chopped) - 3 cups
Water - 3 cups
Butter - 1 tbsp
Black pepper powder - 1/2 tsp.
Cumin powder - 1/2 tsp
Lemon juice - 2 tbsp.
Salt to taste

Method:
1) Pressure cook spinach until one whistle.
2) On cooling, transfer it to a blender to make smooth paste.
3) Heat butter in a pan and add all spices.
4) Add blended spinach and lemon juice and let it cook for 5 mins.
5) Serve hot.

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BBC’s Panorama programme recently did a controversial episode on dangers of radiations emitted by WiFi routers.

The content matter said that the radio-emissions at public wifis were in some instances as much as 300 times higher than those approved by the regulator authority. There has been considerable debate on this subjects with some people raising concerns on the methods of measurement implemented by the BBC team and accused the program of scaremongering.
Read the rest of this entry »

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“The Chemotherapy and Radiation Therapy Survival Guide: Information, Suggestions and Support to Help You Get Through Treatment” by Judith RN McKay and Nancee Hiranois is one of the best chemotherapy book that provides almost all the information on chemotherapy.This book explains how chemotherapy and radiation therapy works, discussing all the main side effects of chemotherapy such as nausea, hair loss, fatigue and digestive problems and provides useful suggestions on how one can prevent or minimise these side effects. It also summarizes on how to deal with stress, anxiety, relaxation techniques for making treatment more tolerable as depression has been shown to slow down the recovery. It also touches on the bone marrow transplantation and lot of other helpful topics on chemotherapy.

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Sydney Singer and Soma Grismaijer, authors of “Dressed to Kill”, suggest that wearing a bra for many hours a day may significantly increase a woman’s chance of developing breast cancer.They believe that wearing a bra, especially a tight-fitting bra with underwires, prevents normal lymphatic flow and hampers with circulation which could then result in fibrocystic changes which may increase the risk of developing breast cancer.
Among the findings listed in their book: Read the rest of this entry »

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