Today's feature is a post from WHEN's volunteer, Chelsea Schreiner, ND. Her post has covered on some fundamental knowledge of how certain factors contribute towards Breast Cancer and listed some useful tips how to decrease your risks. Some are listed below:
Decrease your consumption of red meats and especially avoid charring or burning, which creates compounds that are carcinogenic (cancer causing). When buying animal products, buy free-range, hormone-free, organic sources.
Eliminate processed foods which contain preservatives, chemicals and additives that act as “negative” nutrients. Sugar is also another major “negative” nutrient that depletes vitamins and minerals and decreases the immune system and should be avoided.
Incorporate nutrient-dense, antioxidant foods. Eat a rainbow of colours.
Cabbage, kale, broccoli and brussel sprouts all contain the compounds I3C and DIM, which have known anti-cancer benefits, especially in relation to cancers of female reproductive organs.
Beware of Personal Care Products! You may have heard of parabens but what about phthalates, fragrance and propylene glycol? Remember that what you put on your skin, hair, nails or underarms will get absorbed through your skin and enter your body. If you wouldn’t eat it, you really shouldn’t be putting it on your skin. There are many great resources out there to help identify higher risk versus lower risk products for personal care, beauty and home cleaning. I reference the Environmental Working Group’s Databases and in particular,Skin Deep for personal care/beauty. Closer to home, WHEN (Women’s Healthy Environment’s Network) runs WTF (Wannabe Toxic Free) to help educate on safer choices for your body and home.
Keep hydrated and keep moving. Exercise is important for so many reasons and studies have shown drastic improvement in survival rates in patients with breast cancer who did 20 minutes of walking a day, versus those who did not. Moderate exercise is important for keeping metabolism up, digestion functioning, liver detoxifying, immune system healthy and the lymphatic system moving, which are all very important in cancer prevention.
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