One in eight women will suffer from a serious breast health issue in their lifetime. Breast health can be caused by a variety of factors, such as genetic, hormonal, physiological, and environmental pathogens. One of the main causes of breast diseases is excessive levels of estrogen metabolites. While estrogen is essential for women’s health, excess estrogen can lead to toxicity, causing different types of estrogen-related diseases.
Some of these preventative measures may help to reduce the risk of breast-related diseases.
- Get Enough Vitamin D- Vitamin D can reduce the risk of breast cancer by up to 60%.
- Exercise Daily-Daily exercise can significantly reduce your risk of developing breast-related diseases, and paired with optimizing vitamin D intake, you can reduce your risk of breast cancer
- Increase your Intake of Phytoestrogen Foods- Phytoestrogens are foods that bind to estrogen receptors. When you eat phytoestrogens foods, such as broccoli, ground flax, and pumpkin seeds, you reduce the activity of stronger estrogens from binding to receptors sites. When these stronger estrogen hormones are active, they can cause breast cells to divide more quickly, and during a high-volume division of cells, there can be a potential risk which can cause cancer.
- Darken your Room for Sleeping As you sleep between 1 and 3 am, the hormone melatonin is secreted. If your room isn’t very dark, your production of melatonin will be reduced. Lower melatonin levels are linked to the development of breast cancer. Another bonus of creating a darker room for sleeping is that melatonin also produces anti-aging effects and decreases excess estrogen which can positively affect breast health.
- Reduce your Exposure to Environmental Chemicals- Women, men, and children are exposed to a plethora of environmental chemicals, which play a key role in breast health. Many of these chemicals mimic estrogen, which confuse the body and can cause disease. Here are a few ways you can reduce your exposure to environmental chemicals:
- Reduce your Stress With our busy lives, it’s now more important than ever to create a daily self-care practice that includes time for relaxation. Giving ourselves the opportunity to relax helps balance our hormones and regulate production of cortisol, a hormone released when the body has a stress response. Practice calm breathing, take time to read a book, enjoy a hot bath, or drink a delicious cup of herbal tea. Incorporating simple activities like these can dramatically improve your health.
- Optimize your Diet. We often underestimate the power of nutrition in keeping us healthy. Here are some tips on how to optimize your diet for increased breast health:
-
Increase your intake of healthy fats
-
Eat at least 5-10 servings of fruit and vegetables per day.
-
Reduce your consumption of meat that contains hormones
-
Reduce your sugar intake.
-
Increase your fibre intake.
-
Supplement your diet with antioxidants.
-
Drink green tea.
- Maintain a Healthy Body Weight- When you have excess body fat, your body can produce extra hormones which may impact your breast health. Follow the above nutritional guidelines, sweat daily, and make time to regulate your nervous system to maintain a healthy body weight.
