Women experiencing chronic problems with their menstrual cycles is a relatively common profile . What is not common is recognition that ongoing problems with cycling is a risk factor for all female cancers. Many of the predominate female cancers are hormonally driven.
Traditional healing systems have recognized the importance of focusing on balancing a women’s cycle, for health, longevity and child bearing. This would also include American eclectic and American physio-medical practice up till around 1900 as well as Chinese, Tibetan and Ayurvedic traditional medical systems.
Irregular cycles, excessive cramping, prolonged heavy flow, passing lots of clotted blood, P.M.S., sugar, salt, and or fat cravings, and headaches cover some of the undesirable symptoms that can accompany a women’s period. What is really amazing is that in the minds of many women and their Doctors these kinds of symptoms are considered normal. Pain and or discomfort is the bodies way of saying something is wrong and needs to be addressed.
A general definition of cancer would be a breakdown in the controlling and protective mechanisms in and outside the cell. The 2 main control centers of the body are the central nervous system and central hormonal axis. The division between these systems is for teaching purposes only. Inside our body they are functioning as the neural-endocrine system. When one system is affected so is the other.
Due to poor diet and stress, it is commonplace to for a women to have cycling problems. Generally speaking, these problems are often not hard to straighten out with Natural medicine. Three months of well guided protocol should do it in most cases. Birth control pills are not an answer. My patients, who are on birth control, often tell me it is the lowest dose and therefore safe. I am not actually sure who decided this, but I can guarantee that birth control pills (and for that matter hormone replacement as well) are not without serious downsides, including cancer.
Left untreated and in disarray, a women’s cycle is an indicator of the possibility
of developing serious problems somewhere down the line. This would include heart disease (as well as cancer), which kills about as many women as men.
I believe the correlation between the amounts of cycles a women has in her life and the development of a female cancer is not taking all the facts into consideration. The basic premise is that now women start menstruation earlier and begin menopause later. The second half of the theory is that women have less children and breast feed less. All this equals more lifetime exposure (overexposure?) to estrogen.
If a women’s hormonal cycle has been working properly and has been in balance, than she has never been overexposed to estrogen. When things are in order in a women’s body, not only is she making the right amount and balance of estrogens,(and other necessary hormones) she is also getting rid of them properly. It is not the amounts of cycles that is determining risk but the quality and consistency of the cycle. Many of the symptoms associated with menstruation are hormonally related. They are also symptoms of hormonal imbalance. It is the healer’s job to find out where and why it is going wrong and how to make it right. The reasons can and often are multiple. Natural Medicine factors all this into protocol. An intelligent and well guided program of diet, supplements, herbs, and mild exercise works well.
If we really want to work the preventative end, women have to be aware early enough of things that may lead to problems. To add perspective to the subject; in 1960 breast cancer risk was 1 in 30, now it is 1 in 7: A women’s lifetime risk of cancer in general is 1 in 3( men 1 in 2 ).
Seventy percent of newly diagnosed breast cancer is invasive breast cancer . Invasive means that the cancer has broken out of its capsule and invaded surrounding tissue. That whole process takes between 15 and 20 years. If average age of diagnosis is 50 and it took 15 years to develop, that means these cancers are beginning around 35 years old. Our diagnostic technology is not fine enough to do a good job screening (mammograms, including digital mammograms) before a women is 50. This means we need to look at many other things to determine if a women is at risk. There is plenty right there, right now waiting to be used and strung together properly that can help us window in on a women’s health. If we are going to use the window analogy. than studying a women’s cycle is like looking through a bay window: there is a lot to be seen through it.
Harry Chrissakis
Herbalist and Herbs
www.Herbalist and Herbs.com
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