American Fitness Professionals & Associates

We’re losing the war on breast cancer and it looks like it’s getting worse. So is environmental pollution and the cumulative effect of pesticide residues in our food.  Is there a connection? We think so, and so do many others.

Doctors at the University Laval in Quebec, Canada, have said “The upward trend in breast cancer risk parallels that of the historical pat-tern of organo-chiorine accumula-tion in the environment.” Organ-ochlonines, found in many pesti-cides, act like estrogen in our bodies and promote the common estrogen-receptor positive form of breast cancer and contribute to testicular cancer.
They’re affecting our hormone balance.

Fifty years ago, one in twenty women got breast cancer. Thirty-five years ago the risk increased to one in fifteen. Today, the figure has jumped to one in eight. Look around you at a school meeting for parents, in church, or at a play or concert. Look around you at the supermarket. One out of eight women in the room with you is likely to get breast cancer. That’s frightening. When you include yourself in this equation, it’s terri-fying. And when you realize that you may be passing along this risk to your unborn children, it becomes unthinkable. But unless we think about a problem and face it, we can’t change it. Fortunately, even with incidents of breast cancer increasing, there is something you can do about lowering your risk.
Why women get breast cancer

According to Liane Clorfene Casten in her book, Breast Cancer: Poisons, Profits and Prevention (Common Courage Press, 1996, $18.95), 30 percent of women who contract breast cancer are affected by the amount of estrogen they produce in their bodies, along with the length of time they produce it. The longer a woman’s body is exposed to estrogen, the more she is at risk. Beginning menstruation early with a late onset of meno-pause and having no children (to interrupt your estrogen producing years) increases the risk for breast cancer. That’s the genetic compo-nent to breast cancer risk, but it’s the smaller percentage of women who contract the disease.

It is now more widely believed that 70 percent of women who get breast cancer are very likely getting it from increased exposure to chemicals in the air and water, and foods contaminated with pesticides that act like estrogen in their bodies. These chemicals, called organochlorines, can cause cells to grow abnormally and often lead to cancer.

Organochlorines are found most commonly in many pesticides and insecticides. They get into the foods we eat, the air we breathe, and the water we drink. They are present in particularly high quanti-ties in breast milk, where they accu-mulate in fat cells, so if your expo-sure to these chemicals is high such as eating non-organic foods high in pesticides (grapes, straw-berries, lettuce, and artichokes are among the most heavily sprayed) you may be unknowingly stor-ing up and passing along potent carcinogens to any infant you are breast-feeding. Still, we don’t advocate you stop breast-feeding. The benefits of giving your baby a stronger immune system through breast milk outweigh the dangers. What you can do is to become more aware of your exposure to these chemicals and reduce it by eating more organic or unsprayed foods.

Liane Clorfene-Casten talks about the role of these environmen-tal carcinogens in great detail in her book. We can only touch on them here. What she proclaims is that the operative word when it comes to an increased risk for breast cancer appears to be “estrogen.” Not just the stuff found in hormone replace-ment therapy (HRT), although this needs to be assessed along with your total lifetime exposure.
 But the estrogen that comes from chemicals that mimic this hormone in your body — the organochlorines found in pesticides.

Estrogen Mimickers

We’re concerned here with your exposure to the total amount of estrogen and estrogen-like chemi-cals, since they have a cumulative effect in your body. And exposure to small doses of estrogen over a long period of time can make your tissues more sensitive to them. So let’s take a look at some environ-
mental estrogen-mimickers and see how you can lower your exposure.

One of the most potent chemi-cals that acts like estrogen in your body is DDT As it breaks down, it forms another carcinogen: DDE. But DDT is outlawed in this coun-try, and has been since 1972. It’s still a problem, says Liane Clorfene-Casten, who points out that the half-life of DDT is seven years. That means that it lasts, at half its origi-nal potency, for seven years. Then it breaks down into another estrogen-mimicking chemical: DDE.

It takes up to 30 years to get DDE out of our air, water, and soil. So by the year 2012 we would theoretically be free from these chemicals except that they’re still manufactured in various parts of the world and make their way back into our coun-try in the form of imported foods.
Testicular cancer is also increas-ing greatly. Some researchers believe it is because DDE causes abnormalities in the sexual devel-opment of males. Studies in Scandinavian countries are finding a link between high concentrations of DDE in breast milk and these abnormalities. They believe this is one reason why we’re seeing more testicular cancer. Men, as well as women, are getting hormone-related cancers from environmental toxins.

In Israel, a strong association was found between pesticides and breast cancer. Three chemicals linked to breast cancer DDT BHC, and lindanes were finally banned in the late 1980s after a great deal of public pressure. High concentrations of these pesticides
had been found in cow’s milk, which then contaminated human breast milk, as women continued to eat a diet high in dairy products.

Immediately after the ban, breast cancer rates dropped. But Israel was the only country out of 28 that had a significant drop in breast cancer 10 years after the ban went into effect. What does this mean to future generations? Probably a lot, since infants and children are par-ticularly sensitive to toxic chemicals. Their young bodies are constantly growing, using nutrients (and stor-ing poisons) that they ingest from food and the environment. If a sub-stance is harmful to an adult, the same exposure is obviously much more harmful to a child.
Exposure to estrogen-mimicking chemicals will most likely impact most on an increased incidence of breast cancer in young women who were exposed as babies to contami-nated breast milk and foods con-taining high amounts of pesticides. Unfortunately, young women with breast cancer have the worst prog-nosis for survival.

If you are concerned about your exposure to these chemicals, don’t rush to detoxify yourself from some of them. Dr. Joseph Pizzorno, a naturopathic doctor, cautions against this in his book Total Wellness (Prima Publishing, 1996):

“When patients suffering from sig-nificant contamination with fat-soluble toxins, such as DDT, fast, so much DDT is released into circulation that it can reach blood levels toxic to the nervous system.” If you decide to detoxify, work with someone a nutritionist, naturopath, acupuncturist — who knows how to help you do this slowly and safely.

Dioxins

Tiny quantities of dioxin are also toxic and can damage cells. In fact, dioxin is one of the most toxic man-made chemicals ever made. It attacks the immune system and acts like an environmental hormone.

Most dioxins are a by-product of burning chlorinated wastes and are found in medical and city waste dis-posal incinerators.
These dioxins are then carried in the air and water and find their way into our soil and plants. The plants are then eaten by animals, which store them in their fat cells, which we then eat and absorb. Due to this pathway, there is more dioxin stored in the fat cells of the animals we eat than in the plants we eat. Why? Because dioxin can be washed off plants. In all food preparation, produce is washed. However, the grasses on which dairy cattle graze are not.

Fish retain 159,000 times as much dioxin as the water they swim in. The higher up the food chain, the more dioxins that are likely to accumulate. This is one reason why it may be helpful for you to move closer toward a veg-etable-based diet. Or at least to reduce the amount of animal prod-ucts you eat, and make sure that whatever can be organic — like dairy products is.

Some pesticides banned in this country because they are known to be so toxic and contain organochlo-rines are aggressively marketed to other developing countries, where they are used to raise crops that are imported back into the United States for sale and consumption here. This is referred to by some as the Circle of Poison. It means you need to be watchful of the quality of imported produce you eat and eat more local-ly produced, organic foods.

There was an accident that occurred in Italy in 1976 that brought the effects of dioxin to the public’s attention. Several kilograms of dioxin spilled in a little village. Nine months after the accident, twice as many girls were born than boys. Studies then showed that when both parents were exposed to dioxin, more girls than boys were born. But we’re not concerned that there will be too many girls to go around. The implications are far greater. This incident suggests that dioxin changes hormonal balance in fetuses. It is possible that the reason twice as many girls as boys were born is that some male fetuses were
miscarried due to this hormonal imbalance. Scientists are following the children born after this dioxin spill to maturity. In time, we’ll learn more about the long-term effects of dioxin. The question is, how much time do you have to wait?

Begin Anywhere!   Begin Today!

We have so much exposure to estrogens and chemicals that act like estrogen in our bodies that any-thing you do will help reduce this total amount. The first step is to become more aware of the situation. We all need to pay closer attention to the quality of the foods we buy for ourselves and our family. Organic foods may be the best, least expen-sive investment you can make in your future health.
The second step is to take some kind of broader action. This means everything from making these sug-gested dietary changes to writing letters or making phone calls when bills are being considered to allow unsafe waste disposal, or when contaminants are spilling into our waterways. It means standing up for more stringent laws to keep pesticides out of our food and to stop manufacturing these chemicals for export — when we will be the ultimate recipients of them in the future. And it means buying safer, cleaner goods in all areas, from durable goods, such as carpeting (which out gasses toxic chemicals) to cleaning supplies to personal care products and even paper products (such as unbleached toilet tissue, paper towels, tampons, sanitary pads, diapers, etc.).

In addition, eating a lot of meat   a high-fat, iron-rich diet enables your body to store estrogen in your fat cells and can promote tumor growth. You may not be able to do much about the amount of hormones your body produces, but you can do something about the hormones you take in through con-traceptives, hormone-replacement therapy, your diet (including filter-ing drinking and shower water), and more.

The Value of Organics

Since many pesticides act like estrogen in our bodies, the only way we can prevent our increased exposure to environmental estrogens is to buy the most natural, organic products we can find. There is no price you can put on the lives and health of your family and yourself. We believe it is more important than ever before to buy the most natural products you can find (including organic pesticides and fertilizers for your own lawn and garden).

One book you may want to get is called Safe Food: Eating Wisely in a Risky World, by Michael F Jacobson, Ph.D. and staff published by the Center for Science in the Public Interest (Living Planet Press, 1991, $9.95). It will help you choose the foods you buy more wisely, and is written in an easy to understand language.

Another extremely helpful book is Home Safe Home, by Debra Lynn Dadd (Tarcher/Putman books, $18.95). Our environment and our food may be more polluted than ever, but we can do a lot more than sit and wait in fear or pretend we’re not going to be affected. Big changes are necessary, and possible, when you get headed in the right direction. Begin taking a small step today, by buying organic foods whenever available. Next month we’ll give you more information on additional action that will further reduce your breast cancer risk.  

1. U Dewailly, Eric, et al. “Breast cancer and organochiorines,” Lancet, December 17, 1994 (Canadian doctors).
2. Clorfene-Casten, Liane. Book Excerpt-Part I, Breast Cancer: Poisons, Profits and Prevention, Common Courage Press, 1996. Townsend Letter for Doctors, May 1998.
3. Clorfene-Casten, Liane, ibid. Townsend Letter for Doctors, June 1998.
4. Chivian, Eric, MD, et al, editors. “Critical Condition: Human health and the environ-ment,” MIT Press, 1993.
5. National Research Council, “Pesticides in the Diets of Infants and Children,” National
6. Academy Press, 1993.
7. Ekbom, Anders, et al. “DDT and testicular cancer,” Lancet, February 24, 1996.
8. Pizzorno, Joseph, N.D. Total Wellness, Prima Publishing, 1996.