31 Days of Raising Breast Cancer Awareness

OCTOBER

BREAST CANCER AWARENESS MONTH

31 DAYS OF RAISING AWARENESS THROUGH THERMOGRAPHY SCREENING

At the SOPHIA Natural Health Center, your Thermography Screening provider, we focus on breast health 365 days of the year. Breast Cancer is PREVENTABLE, meaning you can develop a strategy for minimizing your odds of developing this disease by making basic lifestyle changes and using Thermography. Medical Thermography is the use of an infrared camera to “see” and “measure” what we call metabolism or thermal energy emitted from the body. Thermography reveals a reliable pattern of thermal activity that discloses a silent warning. These patterns can see the root causes of: allergies, carotid artery disease, breast cancer, digestive dysfunction, pain, and immune dysfunction. In fact, it can even see the blood supply that feeds a tumor in its microscopic infancy stage!

While it is not a replacement for Mammography, it has advantages including:

• Earlier detection: Studies show it can detect early signs of breast cancer up to 8 years before a mammogram.

• Safe, no radiation exposure. No pain, no breast compression.

• An adjunct to inconclusive mammograms, including improved detection for women with dense breasts or implants.

• Breast thermography has an average sensitivity and specificity of 93%.

• An abnormal thermogram is 10x more significant as a risk indicator for breast cancer than a first-order family history.

• A persistent abnormal thermogram carries with it a 22x higher risk of future breast cancer.

• Detects 95% of early stage cancers when used as a multi-modal approach (exam + mammography + thermography).

KNOW the facts:

• Women in the U.S. get breast cancer more than any other type of cancer develop it.

• It is estimated that nearly 200,000 women will be diagnosed and more than 40,000 will die of breast cancer annually.

KNOW the risk factors:

• Weight: Being obese or overweight.

• Diet & Lifestyle: Lack of physical activity, a diet higher in saturated fat, & more than 2 alcoholic drinks daily.

• Menstrual & Reproductive History: Early menstruation or late menopause, having your first child at an older age or not having given birth, or taking birth control pills for more than 10 years if you are under 35.

• Family & Personal History: A family history of breast cancer—particularly a mother, sister or a personal history of breast cancer of benign (non-cancer) breast disease.

• Medical & Other Factors: Dense breast tissue, past radiation to the breasts, & history of hormone treatments.

KNOW the signs and symptoms:

• Nipple tenderness or a lump or thickening in or near the breast or underarm area.

• Change in the size/shape of the breast or a nipple that is turned slightly inward; or if the skin of the breast, areola or nipple is scaly, red, swollen or has ridges resembling the skin of an orange.

• Nipple discharge.

Source: National Breast Cancer Foundation, Inc.

KNOW how hormone balance affects breast health:

Hormones in a woman's body can play a role in the development of breast cancer. In breast cancer, estrogen causes a doubling of cancer cells every 36 hours. The growing tumor needs to increase its blood supply to provide food and oxygen. Progesterone seems to cause stromal cells (the woman's own cells) to send out signals for more blood supply to feed the tumor.

Source: Dr. V. Craig Jordan, vice president and scientific director for the medical science division at Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia as quoted in NY Times, Hormones And Cancer: By Gina Kolata, Published: December 26, 2006 Source: National Breast Cancer Awareness Month ( NBCAM)

SOPHIA Natural Health Center, 31 Old Route 7, Brookfield, CT 06804

203-740-9300 www.inm.center