Breast cancer is the leading type of cancer in women, affecting one in nine women in Canada. Lifestyle factors as well as minimizing environmental influences can certainly reduce your risk.  Performing regular breast exams and getting screened regularly will decrease your risk even further.

The key to successful recovery from breast cancer (as with any cancer) lies in early detection.  Participating in a detection program will increase your chances of detecting breast cancer in its earliest stages.  Screening is recommended for all women over the age of 40, even earlier if there is strong family history, though some are easy to adopt even earlier.

Here are the five screening techniques available for breast cancer detection:

Mammography

Mammography is likely the technique with which people are the most familiar.  It involves x-raying the breast tissue to identify any abnormalities.  The breast is pressed between two plates – pressure is applied to get a clear picture. Usually, two x-rays are taken of each breast, one from the top and one from the side.

Ultrasound

Ultrasound detects breast changes by sending high -frequency sound waves into the breast. The pattern of echoes from these sound waves is converted into an image of the breast’s interior. Ultrasound may be helpful in distinguishing between solid masses and cysts (fluid-filled sacs). Unlike mammography, ultrasound cannot detect small calcium deposits that may be present in the breast and that sometime indicate cancer, nor does it identify small tumors. Ultrasounds is very useful to confidently diagnose benign conditions and can reduce the need for an immediate biopsy.

Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI)

Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) takes cross-sectional images through different parts of the body, and is a very sensitive imaging tool for finding breast cancer. MRI technology is better than either mammography or ultrasound in determining the extent of the cancer and its exact location, but it can be expensive which makes it less practical. It is the best tool for women with silicone implants.

Breast Exam

Clinical breast exams are shown to be as effective as mammography in reducing breast cancer mortality. The American Society of Breast Surgeons says that breast self exam is “as accurate as mammograms and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) at detecting new breast cancers in high-risk women.”

Thermography

Thermography is a painless, non invasive, early detection method that gives women of all ages the opportunity to detect breast disease at an early stage without exposure to radiation. It uses a digital infrared camera and a high speed computer for imaging and measurement of body tissue heat energy. Tumors and areas of concern typically show high temperatures due to increased blood flow and elevated metabolic activity.  A single mammogram exposes you to 1000X the radiation of a regular chest x-ray, which can lead to new cancer formation as well as heart damage.

Thermography is particularly useful for younger women, under fifty years of age, whose breast tissue is denser which typically makes it more difficult for mammography to identify suspicious lesions. Thermography does offer these distinct advantages:

• greater comfort – no contact or squeezing of the breast tissue is required.
• earlier detection – problems with tissue function can be found before structural abnormalities are seen on x-ray
• examination of the whole chest, breast and armpit areas, and is good for all breast types – young, dense, fibrocystic, and women on hormone replacement therapy.
• improved chances for early detection of fast-growing, active tumors between traditional mammograms.

Information gathered from thermographs may also be used to supplement clinical breast examinations and mammograms, as it can guide doctors to the specific area of the breast that may need particularly close examination.

About mammograms…A controversial review published in the Lancet stated that mammographic screening likely reduces breast cancer mortality by a mere 0.5%. This means that for every 2000 women invited for screening over a 10 year period, only one will have her life prolonged.  Screening also leads to overdiagnosis and overtreatment, with an estimated 30% increase of treatment in women who would not need it otherwise.  For the same 2000 women, 10 healthy women, who would not have been diagnosed if there had not been screening, will be diagnosed with breast cancer and will be treated unnecessarily.

Another study stated that one fifth of cancers seen on mammogram spontaneously disappear. Another research study that followed 110,000 women who underwent periodic mammograms with the same number of women who did not. At the end of 5 years, everybody was screened, and the surprising finding was that the mammogram women had 22% more invasive cancers than the non-mammogram group. These findings suggest that perhaps mammography screening does more harm than good.

Regardless of what you choose to be your best option, you should be informed of all screening methods available to you, with their respective advantages and drawbacks. Breast exams, at a minimum, are of benefit to every woman and should be performed monthly, a few days into the beginning of each cycle (when hormone levels are at their lowest).

They say that 80% of our healthcare starts in the kitchen.  Yet, there are many barriers to being able to ensure that there are always healthy options available.  Aside from the cost of healthy foods, there is also the time required, not only to source quality ingredients, but then to prepare them before they spoil in a way that preserves their nutrition. I think it is one area where area, though critically important, continues to challenge people everyday.  I found myself in a similar situation, how do I find the time and energy needed to feed my family in a way that I could feel good about it?

I started researching last fall, looking for a new gadget or appliance that would facilitate my goals.  I was looking for something that would allow me to cook from frozen, should I forget to defrost the night before.  That is when I came across the Instant Pot.

What is the Instant Pot?

Instant Pot is a multi-function small appliance that can replace your slow cooker, electric pressure cooker, rice cooker, steamer, yogurt maker, sauté/browning pan, and warming pot. Since one of my first criteria is that an appliance has to “earn” its countertop real estate, I was intrigued, as now I could replace my beloved slow cooker.  I read the reviews online, and quite honestly, thought it is too good to be true.  The people who wrote about it seemed almost overly fascinated, overly enthusiastic, was it possible that one little appliance could transform one’s life so radically?  Well, I have to admit, I am a convert.

Why do I love my Instant Pot?

The ability to cook meat from frozen was just the tip of the Instant Pot journey for me.  Suddenly, I was able to make enough soups/stews to feed my family for about a month in a matter of hours.  I would use it to make lunch and again supper in the same day.  I think the best part of it is you can cook everything in one pot, with the incredibly handy saute function, add your vegetables and stock, set it and walk away.  And when you return, voila, lunch/dinner is ready to serve, with enough for leftovers for another day.

Other advantages were I no longer threw out vegetables that were past their prime, but instead, trimmed them and froze them for my next batch of soup.  I also quickly learned I no longer had to source out BPA-free canned beans and lentils, as now I had a time effective way to make beans from scratch. I really like the idea of making homemade yogurt, which can be a real health promoting food, when it is not full of sugar, thickener and stabilizers.  For people sensitive to dairy, this feature also offers a much more cost-effective way to make dairy-free yogurt.

People use it for all sorts of things, including making cheesecake (not yet something i have tried).  But having cooked chicken breasts, seasoned, and shredded for wraps, salads and soups on hand was incredibly convenient.  And don’t get me started with how easy it is to make bone broth – rich, satisfying and nourishing bone broth in a matter of an hour.

Now don’t get me wrong, I have no financial incentive to promote this product. Just a zeal for tasty and healthy nutrition.  There is a learning curve in how to use it, but tons of resources online from Facebook Recipe groups, Pinterest, and good old Google, I am sure you will have no trouble.  I hope you find it as useful and as rewarding as I have.  With the arrival of the autumn harvest, it feels time to dust off my Instant Pot (I didn’t use it much in the summer) and get busy.  Yum, yum.