Breast cancer remains the leading type of cancer (excluding skin) in women. This is a particularly tough pill for me to swallow.

With all the money that’s being poured into research and all the funding that’s being accumulated through telethons and other fundraisers, the following statistics boggle my mind:

• Between 1980 and 1987, rates of invasive breast cancer surgery increased by 4 percent per year
  
  
• Between 1987 and 2002, incidence increased by 0.3 percent per year
  
  
• 2.3 million women with a history of breast cancer were alive in 2002
  
  
• In 2005, an estimated 211,240 new cases of breast cancer were diagnosed among women
  
  
• In the same year, an estimated 40,410 women died of breast cancer, second only to lung cancer
  
  
• Among men, an estimated 1,690 cases of breast cancer were diagnosed in 2005 (less than one percent of all breast cancer diagnoses)

It’s at least encouraging that there have been a reduced number of incidences recently, but that’s no consolation to the scores of families whose loved ones have died of this pernicious disease.

Chemotherapy is the standard method of treatment in the fight against invasive breast cancer. But recent research published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute shows that the procedure is doing more harm than good by sapping people’s money and their quality of life.

Researchers from the Dana Farber Cancer Institute in Boston found some absolutely startling statistics regarding cancer patients and those who receive chemotherapy.

They reviewed nearly 12,300 cases of women, under the age of 69, who had been diagnosed with cancer; approximately 4,100 of these women received chemotherapy treatments. They found that 61 percent of the women who had received chemotherapy were hospitalized for various reasons in the year following their diagnosis. Compare this finding to the 41 percent of women with cancer who were hospitalized, yet did not receive chemo treatments.

Perhaps less surprisingly, the costs incurred by those who received chemo treatments were considerably higher than those who did not. Patients receiving chemo paid an average of $1200 more than non-chemotherapy patients and $17,000 more in ambulance costs.

The fact is chemotherapy often contains more risks than benefits, yet people still believe it’s the best option. The best option, really, is making some permanent lifestyle changes:

Avoid Red Meats and Dairy
Several studies out of UCLA et al show a link between the kinds of fat women eat and the health of breast tissue. One of the worst things you can do is to be eating the kinds of foods that are loaded with saturated fat, red meat and whole milk being chief among them. Some of the best fats are the omega 3 fatty acids. Diets rich in Omega 3s are found in Japan, whose incidence of breast cancer is one-fifth that of the Western world.

Reduce Intake of Sugar and Alcohol
A 2004 study published in Cancer Epidemiology Biomarkers & Prevention showed an increased risk in acquiring breast cancer for those who consumed high carbohydrates, which raise blood sugar levels. And in a 2001 study published in Epidemiology, women who consumed more than half a glass of alcohol per day were 60 percent more likely to develop breast cancer than those who did not. The same standard applies in the recuperative stages.

Exercise!
You’ve heard it all before, and it applies to breast cancer as well. In a 2003 study in the Journal American Medical Association, moderate physical activity (walking or biking at least four days a week) reduces the risk of breast cancer by 20 percent through the elimination of fatty tissues that promote breast cancer.

As always, you should talk with your doctor about these and other avenues to pursue in post-operative treatment for breast cancer, including supplementing with Coenzyme Q10, which can help spurn the growth of tumors.