A Natural Approach to Cancer Prevention

Photo Courtesy Of: Top Photo Group/Thinkstock

Dr. Christine Horner began her career as a board certified general and plastic surgeon, performing breast reconstructive surgeries on women who’d had full mastectomies due to breast cancer.

In this interview, she shares her extensive knowledge about breast cancer—its causes and its cures, and the pros and cons of various screening methods.

Her interest in breast cancer began while she was still in college, when her mother developed the disease.Thirteen years later, when her mother’s cancer returned, Dr. Horner became very active with the American Cancer Society.

For a time, she was a vice-president and the Kentucky state spokesperson for the American Cancer Society on breast cancer issues.

“We were trained to say that we don’t know what causes breast cancer and we have no known cures; the best things that women can do are breast exams and mammograms,” she says.

“… In my practice, I was watching women get younger and younger when I was doing breast reconstruction on them.

Finally, I was doing women in their 20s. I thought something is way wrong with this picture.” I thought why don’t we just look through the medical literature and see if there’s anything that research shows that women can do, that’s within our control that will lower our risks. I had no idea what I was going to find… But when I looked, I instantly found thousands of studies that show exactly why we have a cancer epidemic…”

What’s Causing the Cancer Epidemic?

What Dr. Horner discovered was that there are a number of habits we’ve stopped doing in our modern culture that are highly protective. We’ve dramatically altered our diets—shunning our native, whole-foods cuisine for highly processed fare—and engage in very little physical activity, for example.

“We’re telling women that all they can do is mammogram [screening], and it’s extremely disempowering,” Dr. Horner says. “You feel like you have no control over it. But if you look at epidemiological studies… we know that people that live in Asia have a very low incidence of breast cancer or prostate cancer… [W]e have the studies showing that if an Asian woman moves to the United States and adopts our American diet and lifestyle, within one generation her risk will match that of an American woman’s. It’s like “Hello? What are we doing or not doing that they’re doing or not doing that’s making such a big difference? “

Dr. Horner was eventually introduced to the system of Ayurvedic medicine, and the more she learned about it, the more she felt there were answers therein that needed to be shared with people on a wider scale.

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Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may not reflect those of
Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.

Melania P.

9:35AM PST on Jan 11, 2013

Thanks

January 11
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C.M P.

2:57PM PDT on Mar 26, 2012

“Looking at the diagnostic tests that are currently available, none of them are perfect,” Dr. Horner says. “Everything has its pros and cons… [M]ammography produces radiation, which has been shown to increase the risk of breast cancer. It’s like, “Why are you doing the test to look at a disease when it’s actually causing the disease, too?” … It does pick things up at earlier stages, but the problem is that it’s not very specific. So when it looks and it sees something… that looks suspicious, it is wrong 80 percent of the time. In the United States, there’s roughly a million breast biopsies done per year, and 800,000 of them are unnecessary.”

I recently had three mammograms and one biopsy to determine that there was nothing wrong. It has been teo weeks since, and I have been experiencing nausea. I think this is from the radiation. Is this possible?

March 26
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Danuta W.

1:43AM PDT on Mar 26, 2012

Thanks for sharing.

Marie W.

9:12PM PDT on Mar 25, 2012

Down the road to the pit.

March 25
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Nimue P.

6:17PM PDT on Mar 24, 2012

Knew this, but thanks anyway :)

March 24
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bb s.

5:46PM PDT on Mar 24, 2012

I raise cattle, butcher and eat my own. Lot of the stuff I sell that ends up on your plate I wouldn't eat myself. Since BSE hit in 2003 I have literally stopped eating beef other than what I raise. Stay away from ground beef and institutional meat especially. Ground beef is essentially the worst meat from many many animals. One hamburger could contain meat from literally hundreds of animals, thus if one was diseased it will contaminate a lot of ground beef. Don't forget gut material and organ meat could still be ground beef. Institutional meat typically comes from older animals that may have received over a hundred injections in it's life time including vaccines and injections for parasites. Lot of these animals are sold for food because they were not responding to treatments. The meat from these animals is cheaper and ends up in the cafeterias of institutions and even hospitals. These animals may be sent to market before the withdrawal times specified by the medication given to them.

John K.

3:26PM PDT on Mar 24, 2012

All the medical and scientific organizations should go and lobby to get prostitution legalized in Massachusetts. That will reduce cancer a great deal in Massachusetts.

Robert O.

12:20PM PDT on Mar 24, 2012

Thank you.

Kat H.

11:23AM PDT on Mar 24, 2012

Thanks.