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Recently, I had the pleasure of speaking with Susun S. Weed, founder of the Wise Woman Center in Woodstock, NY and author of "Breast Cancer? Breast Health! The Wise Woman Way," as well as three additional women's health books. A thorough researcher, lyrical writer, renowned herbalist and educator, Susun presents women's health information with a unique perspective. She offers a complete range of nature-based healing options — including those that directly support women who make orthodox medical choices — interspersed with insights about the gifts that our health challenges bring.

"More and more women think about breast cancer as a when rather than an if," Susun writes. It's not surprising, for the statistics are alarming. Breast cancer is the second leading cause of death for women (lung cancer is first), and the American Cancer Society estimates that 211,240 women will be diagnosed with invasive breast cancer and about 40,410 will die from the disease this year. In her book, Susun lists the most scientifically accepted risk factors: sex, age, lifetime exposure to radiation, race, culture, height and weight. Then she presents many other relevant factors that we have control over to prevent breast cancer and ways to treat and survive it should we contract it. Among them are an anti-cancer diet, good breast care (including massage with infused herbal oils), exercise, building a powerful immune system, balancing emotional health, limiting tobacco and alcohol and lowering exposure to mammograms (radiation), environmental toxins (especially chlorine-based chemicals), electromagnetic fields and excess hormones (estrogens such as estradiol).

Breast Health! This book is well worth the read whether you have breast cancer or are in a high risk group or simply want to offer support to someone else. A woman you know is going to sit down in a doctor's office at some point and be told that a mammogram is her best option for breast cancer prevention. Susun believes that the best prevention is proactive breast care. (See "Avoid Mammograms" below.) Even simple practices, such as not wearing your bra for more than 12 hours a day, can make a difference. Susun then takes us through diagnostic choices, including biopsy, and through traditionally prescribed care, which explores surgery, the drug Tamoxifen, radiation and chemotherapy. She also includes an extensive herbal reference section, including nutrition-packed recipes and guides on medicine-making.

The Wise Woman Way: Woven throughout Susun's book are letters from beloved crones. Whether you call them guardian angels, guides or ancestors, Susun has tapped our lineage for understanding. When I asked where these insights flowed from, she said, "They come from my own personal choices of how I am living and from my direct request to the universe that I hear from the ancient ones and be able to bring into the present and the future the wisdom of our deep past." There was a time when women were revered for healing abilities. As I read and reread these "GrandMother" passages, I feel a knowing, long dormant, awakening. Susun told me, "Many of us live with a longing for something that we can hardly even put into words, just a sense that there's something that we're not quite getting. I think that something is a deep connection to nature..." That crone perspective serves both as counterpoint and as complement to the research and experience that make this book a comprehensive, practical guide.

Using Herbs Safely: Susun presents natural remedies for preventing breast cancer, reversing in situ (not invasive or infiltrating) cancers and moderating the side effects of orthodox treatments. Introductory sections include a primer for using herbs safely and distinguishing between four main classes of herbs: nourishing; "tonifying" (tone or strengthen individual organs, and/or entire body systems); stimulating/sedating; and potentially poisonous (extremely potent; taken in small doses for limited periods). Even so, the list of unfamiliar herbs can be intimidating, so Susun offered me tips for the hesitant: "We can use nourishing herbs in any quantity every day of our lives. We can use tonic herbs just as we use exercise: on a regular basis, remembering that we don't do (use) the same one every day. We should avoid using stimulants, sedatives and potentially poisonous herbs unless we need them, and then only the amount we need for only as long as we need."

Six Steps for Healing: Addressing diagnosis and treatment options separately, Susun presents her signature range of least- to most-invasive responses. For example, the chapter on finding a lump in your breast includes choices such as taking time to center yourself before acting, applying specific poultices and infused oils and drinking herbal infusions. If exploring those avenues before leaping into biopsy sounds like too much effort, consider this: Accuracy in interpreting mammograms varies substantially; both false-positive and -negative rates are high. Latent cancers become aggressive in response to certain triggers; x-rays (mammograms) and incisions (biopsies) can act as those triggers.

If You have Breast Cancer, Complement Your Care: In a world where choices are often seen as either black or white, these alternative therapies are excellent complements to orthodox treatment. When I asked about possible resistance from MDs, Susun said, "I've worked with hundreds and hundreds of women with breast cancer and we've done a huge variety of things. We've used milk thistle to protect them against chemotherapy, and their oncologists called to thank me, telling me that they'll never again have anybody do chemotherapy without it. I've had radiation oncologists call and tell me that hypericum oil (St. John's wort) is one of the best things they have ever found out about. I find that the medical professionals who are working with people who have cancer are frightened because they've seen a lot of people die and are very open to anything that can help people be well."

Wait Two Weeks: Susun says that, "every professional that I talked to admitted that even in the most extreme cases, waiting two weeks before you begin treatment is completely safe." With so many excellent ways to build our health — and to support ourselves through any orthodox treatments we may choose — a few weeks now could make a lifetime of difference later.

Susun offers our readers five tips for better breast health

1. Exercise: "Move more; five minutes, five times a day. It will have a tremendous impact on breast health."
   
   
2. Drink nourishing herbal infusions: "My safeguard against cancer, my longevity tonic, and my beauty treatment — all in one cup" is how Susun introduces readers to herbal infusions. Cousins to herbal teas, infusions steep longer (4 - 10 hours for leaf infusions) allowing more nutrients and medicinal qualities to absorb into the water. Susun told me to drink them daily, rotating herbs. Her book's list includes nettle (see issue #1 of The Polishing Stone), oatstraw (see issue #3), red clover and comfrey leaf, which are renowned for their anti-cancer properties. Find dried herbs at your local herbalist or from a variety of online sources.
   
   
3. Avoid mammograms: In Breast Health!, Susun presents a well-documented case that mammography is neither preventive nor healthy. "Mammograms are high-dose x-rays and breast tissue is exquisitely sensitive to cancer being initiated by radiation," says Susun. On the subject of baseline mammograms, Susun writes, "Science, the constant straight line, meets woman, the ever-changing spiral." She notes that breast tissues are constantly changing through the stages of menstruation, ovulation, pregnancy, lactation and menopause, leaving no norm to which to refer back.
   
   "Overdiagnosis and subsequent overtreatment are among the major risks of mammography," reports Samuel S. Epstein, M.D., Rosalie Bertell, one of the world's most respected authorities on the dangers of radiation, and Barbara Seaman, author and co-founder of the National Women's Health network.* They write that the widespread and almost unchallenged acceptance of screening has resulted in a dramatic increase in the diagnosis of ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS), a pre-invasive cancer commonly treated by lumpectomy with radiation, or mastectomy and chemotherapy. Yet approximately 80 percent of all DCIS never becomes invasive, even if left untreated — so mammograms are detecting a form of latent cancer that often doesn't progress. Any residual concern that I had about deciding not to schedule a mammogram just vanished.
   
   
4. Instead, get in touch with your breasts: Many spend their entire adult lives successfully avoiding breast self-exams. "What I say in my book (this is born out by many studies) is that the vast majority of breast cancers are found by women themselves. Not because they are looking for cancer, but because they are alert to what is going on with their bodies," Susun said. Instead, try breast self-massage. "It's a soothing and nurturing pleasure — a relaxing way to get to know your breasts, to be aware." Why not? There's something about actually looking for cancer that creates its own stumbling block.
   
   Susun suggests a two-minute, once-a-week breast self-massage using an infused oil to help prevent and detect cancer. She notes that dandelion flower oil promotes deep relaxation of breast tissues, dandelion root oil reduces cysts in breasts and comfrey root oil has amazing healing properties. But even castor oil, which resolves lumps and growths, would be fine. This is a quantum leap from the two minutes (if that) your medical practitioner might expend only once a year for your breast exam.
   
   
5. Eat well: In her book, Susun presents an extensive list of anti-cancer foods, stressing that organic foods are an essential component of an anti-cancer lifestyle. She says her priority list includes three suggestions: Eat fermented soy, such as miso, tamari or shoyu. Its rich phytochemical content makes it one of the strongest anti-cancer substances known. Substitute olive oil for processed vegetable oils, which go rancid shortly after extraction, and thus are carcinogenic. Replace refined carbohydrates with whole grains, which still contain their anti-cancer and nutritional properties. Refined carbohydrates include white flour ("Any [wheat] that doesn't start with the word ‘whole' isn't whole wheat."), refined sugar and fructose. "I wish people would be as terrified of white flour as they are of hormones in their meat," Susun adds. She suggests that as you use the last of a refined product, replace it with a whole grain one so that bit-by-bit your buying habits change.

Healing Wise and Breast Cancer? Breast Health!
The Wise Woman Way
by Susun S. Weed. See www.susunweed.co

American Cancer Society at www.cancer.org

* International Journal of Health Services, 31 (3): 605-615, 2001

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