Top 5 Tips for Natural Breast Cancer Prevention with Dr. Connealy

Hey guys, Dr. Josh Axe here with Dr. Leigh Erin Connealy. We're so excited to have you here. It's Ancient Medicine Today. Today, we're going to be talking about breast health and let you know the breast is yet to come. And Dr. Leigh Erin here is an expert in integrative medicine. She's a natural medical doctor and she's going to be talking about how to fight breast cancer naturally and breast health. Thanks for being here today.

Thank you.

All right. So, and by the way, we'd love to hear from you guys right now if you're watching this episode live. Hey, let us know where you're from. Let us know, maybe there are things that you do on a regular basis for breast health, for hormonal health, and Dr. Leigh Erin is going to share with us some of her best tips. So let's jump into step number 1 here, frequent home examinations.

Yes, we call that breast self-examination. First of all, you live with yourself, so you know your body better than any doctor, better than anyone. So regularly in the shower with soap, you can do really good breast self-examinations because you will detect some abnormality. Now we are going to talk about in a few minutes that even by the time you feel a lump or bump, it is 10 years old. So of course, the better you know your breasts, the better that you can detect very, very mild abnormalities in your breasts and immediately Go and see a doctor to get proper exams. So it's, you know, people don't realize that just a simple breast, a lot of the time women find the lump themselves.

Yeah, I know my own mom who was diagnosed with breast cancer, same thing, she was in the shower, she noticed the lump herself. And she has an amazing story of her overcoming cancer naturally. The first time she went through conventional medical treatments The second time she went completely naturally. But yeah, I mean, you know, this is something that's really near and dear to my heart because having a family member who went through this as well, I know really how important these tips are. By the way, hey, help us get this message out right now. There are millions and millions of women that are diagnosed with breast cancer every single year around the world, and we need to get the message out on how to naturally prevent or treat this condition. So take a minute right now, punch that share button, click that like button, help us get the word out here about integrative medicine as Dr. Connealy is sharing with us. So number 1, frequent home examinations. Let's talk about number 2, know your family history.

Yes, because also my mother had breast cancer too, so I can relate. But family history, because I'll tell you an interesting story, I have 2 girls from Texas. their sisters. Their mother died of breast cancer, their grandmother died of ovarian cancer. So they decided to go and get genetic testing to see if they were BRCA1 and BRCA2. Well, sure enough, they were positive, both of the girls. So then they decided to do a blood test called the Oncoblot, and the Oncoblot will test your blood. It's like a blood biopsy, and it will tell you if you have cancer or not, and it checks 33 types of— 32 types of cancer, and— because it measures the Enox2 protein on a cancer cell. So sure enough, and these girls are young, one's 40 and one's 42, and one of them had breast and one of them had ovary. Now you're probably wondering, okay, what were their scans? What was going on? What were their blood tests? What's their tumor markers and all that? Believe it or not, their scans of their breast, including mammography and MRIs of the breast, showed no lumps or bumps. The woman with the ovary, I did a pelvic MRI, absolutely no lumps or bumps. Because remember I told you, from one cancer cell to tumor is 10 years. So this is early, early, early detection, which is probably the most critical thing for cancer. The cure for cancer is prevention. And believe it or not, we know today that there are so many things we can do to prevent cancer. There are so many blood tests, there are so many different options of whether we have cancer. So another thing I checked on them which was very interesting, is something called circulating tumor cells. Once you have something growing in your body 1 millimeter, that's very, very tiny, 1 millimeter, you're already releasing circulating tumor cells. Why are these so important? These are so important because that's what's responsible for 95% of metastasis. So even though you may not have a lump or bump, you can measure the circulating tumor cells, and this is another type of blood test. So this is the thing that people don't know that we need to make people aware and informed of things they can do for early, early detection.

Okay, so Dr. Connealy, you have a patient come in and they find out, they run this testing with you, they find out that they're susceptible or they have this issue going on, what you just said. So what then happens? What are your recommendations for them?

Well, that's a good question. So first of all, I see, first of all, I maybe do the OncoBlood test. Then I will check for circulating tumor cells because I don't want to rely on just one test to determine if someone has cancer. And so then I will do complete blood test, chemistry panel, checking their liver, kidney, electrolytes, their thyroid, because the thyroid plays a phenomenal role in the metabolism of your body. I check your blood sugar because what happens when you have high blood sugar? You have increased risk of all diseases. What is your C-reactive protein? Your C-reactive protein is a marker for inflammation. Inflammation is the precursor to all illnesses. What is your vitamin D levels? We know that vitamin D influences 200 genes and incredible for prevention of cancer. I will check your hormones. I will check, for example, in women, how are you metabolizing your estrogens? Are you a good metabolizer? Do you need to take things that correct the metabolism in the direction of how your hormones are made? So I do all these things. Now, I will do conventional testing. Mammogram, I usually, because I'm a doctor, the standard of care is to get a mammogram. But thermograms, I use lots of thermograms, ultrasounds, MRIs. But again, if the situation is too small, it will not be detectable on a routine scan. I still do them anyway to make sure I'm not dealing with a lump or bump that's something that has to be addressed. Now, after that, We always have all of our patients see our nutritionist, and our nutritionist is amazing. She's been with me a long time and she knows how to educate people on the power and science and information of food. And this is what, what you're doing. This is what we have got to do because people don't understand the science of it. They go, oh, I eat healthy. I go, okay, tell me what you eat. Well, I eat cereal for breakfast, granola. I'm like, Do you know you just ate a candy bar?

Yeah.

No, that is not. You can't start your day with sugar. You can't end your day with sugar. You've got to, because what do cancer cells, cancer cells have lots of sugar receptor sites on them. Then we have our patients all, I give them all a program to detox. All of us, whether you have cancer or not, it doesn't matter. We all have to utilize small things to start detoxification. First of all, in a month, You will feel phenomenal once you start detoxing. My favorite thing to do is have patients do infrared sauna. Infrared sauna, and if they don't have room for infrared sauna or they don't want to spend money on infrared sauna, I have them do baths of Epsom salts, baking soda, and clay. And I make them a little cocktail.

Ooh.

Or essential oils. I have them different, all different things. Then I have all of my patients do a liver cleanse. So there's 2 ways to clean out your liver, coffee enemas, and people go, what? Coffee enemas, not Starbucks. It is coffee enemas, a special kind of coffee that has the highest amount of phytonutrients to clean out your liver. Believe it or not, coffee enemas used to be part of the Merck Manual, which was the Bible for doctors to look up how to treat illnesses. Then I have patients do lymphatic drainage. Okay, I give them a homeopath to start activating and draining. I tell people there's lots of leaves in the gutters in your body, and your lymphatic system, believe it or not, is 4 times greater than your blood circulation. Do you know that if your lymph stopped working for 24 hours, you would die? That's how critical it is. So we've got to— just exercising, rebounding, moving gets your lymph moving. And then of course I have targeted supplements, vitamin C, pancreatic enzymes. There's so many other things.

Yeah.

And I tell people, You know, there's no one magic bullet. Every patient comes in and goes, oh my God, Dr. Connealy, I've read this works for cancer, this works, and this works. You know what? They all work in all different pathways. If you have 100 holes in the roof, you've got to fix them all, right? You can't just put a remedy for each one of them. You've got to fix all the holes in the roof. So there's lots of different magic bullets. One of the most important And when we're talking about breast cancer are the broccoli group.

Mm-hmm.

Broccoli, which has diindolylmethane, which is amazing in preventing and reversing cancer along with curcumin. And then there's a flavonoid called hesperidin that comes out on this peel of lemons, limes, and grapefruits. So there's so many anti-cancer properties of lots of beautiful things in nature. And like I said, you kind of have to do it all, although I individualize and personalize with each patient because there's no one size fits all. There's no one like you. And so we've got to customize a program and make sure that we are addressing all the avenues of how you got here in the beginning. One of the most important things I always tell people though, they'll say, Dr. Connelly, what is the single most important thing if I have cancer? You're not going to believe what it is. It is your mind. If you get your mind in order— and all of us, all of us have issues. There isn't a person— because, you know, they say that we inherit 4 generations of emotional conflicts. So that means that we all came into this world, regardless of a phenomenal mother and dad and how we grew up, it's— we are— we have developed emotional challenges along the way of the lifetime that we have to address. And so many people harbor negative stuff, and they just can't get over that person who did something to them. But we all have to learn how to love people unconditionally and forgive them if they've trespassed you and done something against you. And so I would say if everyone could wake up before they get out of bed, This is what I do before I get out of bed. I get my mind in an attitude of gratitude. I say, thank you, God, that I'm alive today. Thank you, God, for my amazing body that is working for me and caring for me. And of course, everyone's going to have their own list of things that they want to do, be grateful for. But you've got to be grateful for everything— your bed, your pillows, your linens. I mean, the car. You just— little, little things. And if you need something resolved, thank you, universe, that this problem is resolved. So please make sure the story you're telling yourself is a good positive one.

I love it. Great message, Dr. Connealy. And as she's saying, all of these things in terms of cancer prevention and cancer treatment, they're important to a full part of a cancer protocol as she takes care of in her clinic. You can see it's not this one single treatment. This happens a lot of times today. People go to doctors that are part of our current conventional medical system rather than a doctor who runs an integrative practice like you do. And it's typically a one-pronged approach versus what you do. It's mind, it's body, it's spirit, it's nutrition, it's supplementation, it's holistic treatments like infrared sauna. It's a real difference. Really, when my mom fought breast cancer, Or fought cancer later on, that's what we did. I mean, all of these things you're talking about, the proteolytic enzymes, the broccoli, using food as medicine, these things are so important. So we know food is a big part of this. Another big thing is toxic burden though that can actually cause cancer. What are just a few of those toxic burdens that people need to get out of their life?

I would say probably one of the biggest ones, when we do urine tests, you can do a $100 urine test and determine what toxins are in your body. But usually the biggest toxin is phthalates. I talked about that earlier. Plastics. Plastics are ubiquitous in the environment, in our water, our food supply. You're drinking out of them. I mean, it is terrible. And what does it do? Cause cancer, heart disease, and diabetes. And really the best way to get plastics out is sweat it out. Infrared sauna. Yes, the broccoli supplements help. But you've got to sweat this stuff out because there are not enough detoxifiers that you can take orally to pull those toxins. What happens is they plasticize that membrane. I talked about the membrane of the cell. Every cell has a membrane. And what they do is they attack to the membrane where the membrane of the cell is where everything happens. Do you know there's over 33,000 receptor sites on the magical membrane? And so all the chemicals, they all interfere. We talked about endocrine disruptors. It is unbelievable. And I mean, people don't understand how the synergistic potential of all these chemicals is creating outrageous havoc in how we think, how we feel, and the epidemic of diseases we're facing today.

Yeah, it's big. So as Dr. Connealy is talking about, so again, if you're really toxic, you've been consuming plastics. Get them out, replace them with glass, stainless steel containers. Those are going to be much better options. And hey, do a detox, infrared sauna, eat more cruciferous vegetables like broccoli, maybe take a broccoli supplement. And hey, you're going to help— it's going to help you detoxify your body there. Reconsider oral contraceptives. Let's talk about this, and this might be a little controversial. By the way, if you're enjoying this live training right now on how to beat breast cancer, Take a minute right now, punch that share button, click that like button, help us spread the word and teach women the truth about breast cancer. Let's talk about oral contraceptives.

Oral contraceptives, they just came out with a book called The Pill Problem. And we know that people utilizing the pills, what is the birth control pill? Well, it's a synthetic estrogen and it's a synthetic progesterone. So the way hormones work. They have a lock and key. So you know how you've gone to the locksmith store and you want to get a key made and then you bring it home and you make sure it works? Well, that's the same way that hormones work in your body. They turn on the cell or turn off the cell. Well, when we are taking birth control pill, first of all, it's turning off your body, okay, because you don't get periods anymore.

Yeah.

You get a period because you're taking the pill. You're turning off your hypothalamic-pituitary axis that is sending the messages down to your ovaries to make hormones. And so now that's not occurring. Okay? So you're shutting off your own rhythm and your own physiological production of hormones. And then those hormones interfere because the estrogen doesn't turn on the cell and progesterone doesn't turn off the cell like a biologically identical hormone. And so pills, and then all these hormones can be stored in your body. So they're saying now that you have a dramatically increased risk of breast cancer and probably other kinds of cancers if you take synthetic estrogens, especially like the birth control pill.

Yeah, I know I took care of a lot of patients in the past as well who once they got off birth control, they had major issues with yeast and Candida and a number of other issues. So we know this is a really Big deal here in terms of the oral contraceptives and all the side effects she's talking about here. Okay, let's talk about number 5, balance your hormones. This is key for so many conditions. I mean, you know, one of the things when I first got into practice, Dr. Connealy, I think the thing that was most shocking to me was the number of young women, really young like early 20s already, who were having major issues with their thyroid, conditions like PCOS, a number of other problems. Talk to us about that link between cancer and hormone balance and how to balance our hormones.

Yeah.

Right.

Well, hormones are the chemical messengers in your body that turn your cells on and off. And so they're critical. So the 4 major systems of hormones in your body, your thyroid, your thyroid makes several different hormones and your thyroid runs the metabolism and the energy of every cell in your body, every single cell in your body. So if you don't have good thyroid hormone production, then your body won't work. In fact, chemicals attack the thyroid. One of the worst is gluten. Gluten every day will destroy it. But there's lots of chemicals because if you look at the thyroid, it doesn't have a capsule. It's a kind of a fluffy texture. So it's very, very susceptible to thyroid. And thyroid cancer, as you know, is increasing also. Then you have your pancreas. Your pancreas controls your blood sugar and controls when it— to go up and down. And so what happens is when we have most— a lot of people today, probably over 80 million people are pre-diabetic and diabetic. And so sugar wreaks havoc in our body because first of all, we'll have the roller coaster of the sugar. You eat a bagel, your blood sugar runs up, cortisol is brought in, insulin is brought in, and then it brings it down and then you're hungry again in 1 hour. So eating sugar creates lots of different imbalances in the body, but more importantly, cancer feeds off of sugar. And so we have— but prediabetes, we do a blood test called the hemoglobin A1c. That's a reflection of your blood sugar over 90 days. Just don't check your blood sugar because that's the commercial. We need the movie of your blood sugar, which is the hemoglobin A1c. Like I said, hemoglobin A1c is a reflection of your sugar over time. And so if you have elevated levels of hemoglobin A1c, you're at risk of all diseases, hormone imbalances, cancer, diabetes, heart disease, Alzheimer's now. And so, so you've got to get your sugar down. Then you have your adrenals. Your adrenals sit on top of your kidneys like little hats. They make over 100 hormones. And, you know, everybody's stressed today. So you need powerful adrenals, whether you're trying to get pregnant, whether you're trying to get through the day. And it is the hormone of stress, immunity, and longevity.

Hmm.

Then you have the ovaries in women. Ovaries in women make the estrogen, progesterone, testosterone. So what happens is you put a person in this world with stress, not sleeping, toxic water, breathing and eating toxic chemicals, and you have a— we don't even know what the outcome in each person's going to be.

Yeah.

Because there are so many variables, you know, that when they do studies, they say, okay, we're just going to have people drink toxic water, or we're just going to have people do one thing. Well, no, that's not reality. That isn't the reality of the world. We're in this, you know, menagerie of incredible variables That affect us, and so we've just got to take each one apart and really address every single facet of what's going on in our life and get everything in order and balance.

Yeah, great advice. And we know, again, I know going back and I mentioned my mom with cancer earlier, she had a hormone-based breast cancer. There's a lot of women and men today who can be susceptible to that. So we want to answer some of your most common questions here. Let's talk about number 1. What's the difference between thermography and mammography?

Well, that's a great question because breast screening, the typical breast cancer screening is mammography. And actually they just changed the age to 45. And so as getting your first, they said before it was getting a mammography between 35 and 40, but now I think the study's coming out on radiation because mammography is radiation. 230 times the radiation of a chest x-ray, believe it or not. So it's quite a bit. But mammography will tell us lumps and bumps and calcification, a structural situation. But thermography is an actual physiological picture of your breasts. So what does cancer look like? Cancer is a very vascular, hot situation. And it shows up on thermography. I will tell you though, you don't use thermography to diagnose breast cancer. You use it as information that there's an imbalance in the system. It may be you have a progesterone deficiency, maybe there's too much estrogen, just for example.

Yeah.

People don't realize eating lots of flaxseeds can cause estrogen. But we have so many what they call xenoestrogens, xeno is the Greek word for foreign estrogens in the environment that are wreaking havoc, not just in women, but in men also. So the thermography will tell you dynamic information without touching you. It is a picture of your breast. So whereas mammography, it's— they compress the breast multiple times and smush it. And so like, even if you have cancer, it could be potentially dangerous. So that's the difference. Now, the other things I want to talk about though, we should talk about ultrasound because ultrasound is a beautiful way to detect a lump or bump. And so that's also an adjunctive treatment. And then there's MRIs. The problem with MRIs, the doctors today don't have the ability to interpret the MRIs as good as these other modalities.

Yeah.

And believe it or not, do you know thermography has been around for about 50 years?

It's amazing. You know, this is actually my mom, one of the things that we continually do with her now. It's something our whole family has done and it really is amazing. And we'd love to hear from you right now. If you've ever done mammography, let us know right now or any form of testing that we forgot to mention. But we'd love to know that if you've tried thermography in the past and what you've seen with that. Next thing here, how often should patients be tested and who is at higher risk?

Yeah. Well, it depends on what you're going to be doing. People who are at higher risk are one. People don't realize that genetics does not determine destiny. So just because your mom or dad have cancer, yes, maybe there's a weakness, but guess what? You can change these weaknesses by your lifestyle. Nature produced an article last year, May 2016, that 90% of cancers our lifestyle and environment.

Wow.

Okay, so that means we all, all of us need to look at our lifestyle and environment. What are we doing? How are we living? How are we sleeping? How much water, etc.? So what I do for prevention, I tell people once a year you should get what I call a preventive cancer screening. And in my book that we're that you're going to mention later, it talks about preventive cancer screenings. Because, you know, from one cancer cell to the tumor is 10 years. We have 10 years of health opportunity. You can go to your doctor to see if you have an environment for cancer, if something is brewing, simmering, fermenting. We have that technology and ability today, Josh.

Yeah.

And people just don't know about it. And we need people to become empowered with the information and knowledge. So that they can take charge of their own health.

Yeah, great advice. So we'll go to number 3 here. I was recently diagnosed with breast cancer, now what? What are my next steps?

Well, first of all, don't panic, don't be in fear because emergency treatment, even though a lot of doctors will say, okay, you need to see me right now, you need to get the treatment right now. Let's face it, as I said, took 10 years to get. Waiting for a month to go to doctors to get different opinions on what you need to do with your particular situation, understanding what the treatments are going to do to you, whether you need surgery or chemo or they're recommending radiation, then you need to be reflective and say, okay, Why did this happen? When people— I would tell people one thing emotionally that happens with breast is unrest in your nest. So there are things going on in your personal life, whether it's with a child, a husband, a parent, that is causing emotional conflict. And so, and then you need to say, okay, what are the things then I need to change in order to get well. Because, you know, it's amazing. I've been practicing medicine 30 years, and do you know that the last 5 years I've asked patients, okay, what's the first thing you've changed since you have been diagnosed? Do you know, hands down, everyone says how they eat. They're juicing now, they're doing wheatgrass, they're eating—

Mm-hmm.

They've cut out all the sugar. So you know what? Intuitively, we know it, but we've got— we're here to help encourage you, educate you, empower you to start living life correctly. There is a way to live our life, and I'm not talking about perfection, because that's impossible. That'll drive you crazy. But there is a way to do things in a beautiful way and live life and not get sick. Now, what other things you need to think about? You know, when you get diagnosed, you need to look at the panoramic view of what's going on. And if a doctor is pressuring you and rushing you, you need to ask him or her why. Then you need to ask the doctor, is the doctor asking you how are you eating, how are you sleeping, what kind of stress do you have? And if the doctor's not checking your blood sugar, your vitamin D, your thyroid, your adrenal, your toxic level, how are you metabolizing estrogen, then that might not be a doctor that you want to be partnering with to treat your cancer because all of these things have to be addressed. And also, technology in medicine is doubling every 2 years. So go look. There are amazing resources out there now to know. Like, for example, I will tell you something that I've only been doing for 5 months. I've been recommending women to get cryotherapy. So if they have a lump, 1 centimeter or 2 centimeters, I tell them to get cryo. What is cryo? Cryo is freezing. So there's no surgery, it's non-invasive, and they freeze the tumor. So that is usually, obviously, that's going to be a much better experience for a patient than invasion into the breast.

Yeah. Great advice there. And so, you know, as Dr. Connealy is talking about, it's really important not to rush into things. And I've seen this so many times with so many patients is they go to a doctor and they just have fear just really striked into them and they immediately, it's like they stop asking questions, they just do whatever that one doctor says rather than, hey, going and doing their homework and really connecting with and finding that perfect doctor who follows more of an integrative approach like you're talking about with The natural treatments, the stress reduction which is so big, the diet therapy, all of these things together are so important. I want to show you guys this as well. Some of the things we talked about here, the 5 tips. Number 1, frequent home examinations. Number 2, know your family history. Number 3, reduce your toxic burden. Remember we talked about the infrared sauna and the cruciferous vegetables like broccoli, the benefits. Reconsider oral contraceptives. Balance your hormones and check out Dr. Connealy's new book. You can go to this website here right now, www.ConnealyMD.com, and the book is The Cancer Revolution. It's a groundbreaking program to reverse and prevent cancer. I want to encourage you guys, check this out on her website right now, ConnealyMD.com. Is it on Amazon as well?

Yes, it is.

Check it out on Amazon.com. Again, great book here on how to naturally fight and prevent breast cancer. Dr. Connealy, hey, thanks so much for being here today. And hey—

Thank you.

Help us spread the message. There are so many women today who have been diagnosed with breast cancer, who we want to help prevent it with them in the future. Take a minute right now, punch that share button, click that like button, help us spread the word that there are natural ways, natural approaches to treat breast cancer. And the first time my mom had breast cancer, one of the reasons why I'm a doctor today is seeing my mom go through chemotherapy and having a mastectomy and all the things she went through. You know, as a kid, I never wanted to see anyone go through that. That's part of the reason why I started teaching people how to use food as medicine because I wish we would have prevented that. And I think if more women read your book and know about this message, they'll learn the truth of how to fight cancer naturally. So guys, hey, thanks for watching. We have Dr. Erin, Lee Erin Connealy here with us today.

Thank you.

And hey, thanks for watching. Hi, Dr. Axe here. I want to say thanks so much for checking out this YouTube video and also don't forget to subscribe if you want to get more great content on things like herbs, essential oils, natural remedies, and how to use food as medicine. Also, check out more of our content on my YouTube channel. Thanks for watching.