For years, Ive told my readers that mammograms do little to increase your life span if you have breast cancer. If you have a tumor, mashing the breast (and the tumor) will likely spread the cells. So Ive been absolutely against routine screening.
Even the new guidelines do not go far enough. They recommend mammography every two years starting at age 50 — instead of annually at age 40. This is a great first step. But its still routine screening that is very dangerous.
No one in conventional-medicine circles considered the ramifications of methodically and regularly mashing the breast and then frying it with radiation from the mammogram. And, no one ever considered the possibility that early breast cancers often go the way of most prostate cancers — the immune system finds and destroys them.
But, finally, modern science has come around. A recent study from Norway shows that mammograms may actually increase your risk for breast cancer. That is right! Conventional medicine has convincing evidence that mammograms may do more harm than good!
In this study, researchers compared regular mammogram screening to no screening. The results are shocking.
The researchers examined the records of women (age 50-64) who completed three rounds of mammogram screening between 1996 and 2001. Then they compared this group to women (controls) who normally would have had the same type of screening and frequency had the program been in place from 1992-1997. These women had only one mammogram. This single screen was at the end of their observation period.
Finally, both groups attended their study end screening at similar rates. In the regular mammogram group, 78.3% of women attended the third round of screening. In the single screening control group, 79.5% attended their screen.
The researchers compared the groups for invasive cancer. If you are a believer in mammograms, you will be dismayed by the results. Per 100,000 women, women in the multiple screening group had 1,268 invasive cancers. Women who had only a single screening had 810.
That is a 57% increase in cancers in the women who had mammograms regularly. Even after adjusting for methodology, women in regular screening had 22% more invasive cancers compared to those getting the single screen at the end of five years.
The authors also discovered that women who get regular mammography have more invasive cancers detected. Their conclusion is that breast cancer may often spontaneously go away when not treated, as do many other cancers. The only way for women to avoid life-damaging treatment is to not get screened!
The problem with breast cancer is that its never allowed to happen. If your doctor sees breast cancer, you will be rushed into unnecessary surgery. Why is it unnecessary? The authors reported that most tumors simply regress on their own. These include colon tumors that arise from polyps, cervical precancerous lesions, melanoma, kidney, and other cancers. So its most reasonable to assume that many breast cancers will also spontaneously heal if you give them the chance. That is certainly what the data suggests.
But theres another possibility. That is the chance that mammography itself induces cancer in some women. If you follow most scientific methodology, the results of this study indicate that mammograms increase your risk of cancer by 57%. Now that is a conclusion your doctor does not want to hear.
This study is just fantastic in my book. It slams the long-held dogma of the so called early detection school. Earlier detection actually led to more invasive cancers! That means more lost breasts and disfigurement. And more anguish and financial losses over cancers that might have never seen the light of day had the women allowed their own bodies to fight it off.
It strongly suggests to me that preventive strategies can still work even in the early phases of an already formed cancer. And, that the medical pundits sure better find a means to identify those lesions that will not kill their host. That will spare the horrors of cancer treatment that was not needed.
I say it again: I am not a fan of mammograms. I believe that a superior screen is thermography, which detects the metabolic changes leading to cancer long before cancer develops. With this therapy, you can take steps that enable your body to alter the metabolic changes. With the help of natural, noninvasive treatments, you do not have to get breast cancer. And you also do not have to submit to a test that might increase your risk of life-threatening cancer by 57%. See breastthermography.com for testing sites.
Ref: Arch Intern Med. 2008 November 24;168(21).