What Your Doctor May Not Tell You About(TM): Breast Cancer: How Hormone Balance Can Help Save Your Life (What Your Doctor May Not Tell You About...)

The book is equal parts criticism and suggestion. Current health treatments, including HRT, receive serious condemnation, and authors John Lee and David Zava carefully provide plenty of medical research to back up claims that excessive estrogen is a main source of cancer-causing irregularities. While the names of all the different natural and synthetic hormones can get overwhelming for the lay reader, with perseverance your new vocabulary of terms like androstenedione, estradiol, and cortisol will enable you to communicate more effectively with your doctors. The authors credit these hormones not just with a role in cancer, but with culpability for everything from insomnia and acne to fatigue and migraines. A full chapter extols the virtues of natural progesterone cream, and urges women to order their own saliva tests for proper evaluation of their hormone levels.

Diet and exercise recommendations are simple, outlining reasons to limit fats, sugars, and meats while increasing vegetables and adding a multivitamin. These recommendations extend to adolescents and urge getting off the couch and beginning a gentle exercise program to women of all ages and in each stage of life. --Jill Lightner

Product Description
Each year, over 40,000 women in the U.S. die from breast cancer. With statistics rising, conventional methods of treatment are simply not working, and in some cases may even be harmful. Now, Drs. Lee and Zava explain the potentially life-saving facts, such as: likely sources for the increase in breast cancer, including environment, excessive estrogen, progesterone imbalance, and diet, and the dangers associated with traditional hormone replacement methods. Readers will learn strategies for lowering their risk and preventing this devastating disease through a revolutionary hormone balance program.

Breast cancer is so prevalent in our modern society that it is a source of fear to most women. The statistics in chapter 1 from the National Cancer Institute and American Cancer Society include: a 40% increase from 1973 to 1998 and 15% of women who die of cancer are from breast cancer. The U.S. and Canada have the highest rates of breast cancer worldwide.

In Part 1, the traditional methods of treatment with radiation, chemotherapy and drugs such as Tamoxifen are related in large part to pharmaceutical funding of medical schools and research. Most of the risk factors for breast cancer, such as age, geography, early pregnancy, diet, alcohol, exercise, oral contraceptives and HRT are related in one way or another to estrogen dominance. What is the process of cancer development and how does a cancer cell differ from a normal cell? This information is covered in detail in Part 1.

Part 2 gives us details on the nature of estrogens, progesterone and androgens in the role of women's health. Dr. Ercole Cavalieri, research scientist at the Eppley Institute for Research in Cancer, University of Nebraska Medical Center, coined the phrase "Angels of Life and Angels of Death" referring to estrogens. This is due to their beneficial and harmful natures. How estrogens are balanced with progesterone; the relationship to the cells, the liver, the immune system; and what makes estriol a superior, safer estrogen is thoroughly covered in this section.

What about other hormones: androstenedione, testosterone, DHT and DHEA? Read chapter 10: "The Nature of the Androgens." Especially important are the last two chapters in this section, researching the problems of HRT, ERT, Tamoxifen and Raloxifene. Read this shocking information: "In case you have any doubts as to the extent to which drug companies are controlling physicians, did you know that pharmacies sell prescribing information to drug companies? That's right. A drug company rep can purchase a list of all the doctors who are filling prescriptions at a particular pharmacy, and find out exactly what they're prescribing. How's that for an invasion of privacy?" (p.179)

Finally, we come to Part 3-how can we prevent and/or heal breast cancer? Guidelines for using natural progesterone are outlined for various circumstances, such as premenopausal, menopausal, with endometriosis, breast fibrocysts, PMS, menstrual migraine, hysterectomy or ovariectomy and women using estrogen. The use of other hormones is also covered. A chapter on saliva testing explains how and why it is valuable and gives helpful instructions.

What about soy, dietery fat and carbohydrates? Much nutritional information is given, including "Dos and Don't's of the Anti-Cancer Diet." (p.289) Also covered is the matter of the environment with the effect of xenohormones and other toxins. Is your liver in good shape? What support can you give your system to counteract the negative effect of all these poisons?
This is a brief summary of what to expect from this remarkable book, which is informative, positive and hopeful.


The Truth is Finally Told!   January 30, 2002
Functional Medicine Center (Grand Junction, CO USA)
56 out of 62 found this review helpful

Finally a book on breast cancer that explains the REAL causes: (1)environmental exposure to toxic chemicals like pesticides and petroleum products that mimic our own natural hormones, estrogen specifically; (2) nutritional deficiencies from eating junk food that allow these toxic chemicals to inhibit normal detoxification mechanisims that take place in the Liver and Gastrointestinal tract; (3) taking prescription drugs which amount to synthetic derivations of our natural hormones, which inhibit normal cellular communication and can damage our DNA, resulting in formation of hormone-driven tumors; (4) chronic emotional stress which uses up our B-vitamins, essential fatty acids and other essential nutrients needed to maintain our immune and detoxification systems, as mentioned above.
Dr. Lee is a hero and a mentor. I highly recommend that ANYONE interested in the REAL causes of breast, ovarian, uterine and prostate cancers, AND how to prevent them, should read this book, and the two previous books by Dr. Lee, on Menopause and Premenopause, both available on this website!
More and more people are waking up....and beginning to understand the horrible mistake we made by trusting large corporations (drug companies)that place profits before people. Reading books by Dr. Lee will educate us and show us how with a little time reading, we can learn how to take care of ourselves while living in a world that is run by corporations trying their hardest to destroy us!
Read and share this book with those you love!


Life changing and life saving   January 6, 2002
Dena L. Simister (UT)
28 out of 30 found this review helpful

Dr. Lee has been maligned for so long by the medical community, but the information presented in this book cannot be ignored or taken lightly. If every doctor in America would read this book and then have the courage to act, no doubt thousands of women would benefit. I have not been personally affected by breast cancer, and am hopeful that I will never be diagnosed with it. I am following Dr. Lee's recommendations and expect to live a long and healthy life!


Refreshing and much needed   July 26, 2002
21 out of 22 found this review helpful

At last a straight forward amd well researched alternate veiw about breast cancer, its causes and its treatment. Dr. Lee and all have gone to great lengths to present meaningful and in depth perspectives on the issues that most matter in trying to understand how we can respond to breast cancer. They don't shy away from the difficult questions of how money and politics have shaped what we have been led to believe about how our own bodies function and the impact of various hormones on us. All we have to do is look in the news these days to see the mis-information that we have been fed elsewhere on HRT, cancer and such. Nor do they back away from distortions that have been feed to us about supposed sucesses on the war on cancer. Finally we have in one place a book that can point us in the direction of real hope and possible long term solutions, both individually and collectively.
I have been working with women and men with breast cancer for many years. At last I have a source of information that I can point people to that we can trust. Read this book. Then re-read it. It is a goldmine and a must if you or anyone you know has breast cancer or even concerns about it.


A Must Read For Every Women, Young and Old   July 4, 2004
Elizabeth (Massachusetts)
18 out of 19 found this review helpful

Everyone who has had breast cancer or who has a loved one with breast cancer should read this book. In fact, every woman should read this book because it tells the truth about breast cancer, the politics behind the treatment of breast cancer, and tells you how to prevent it. Prevention isn't profitable, so we aren't going to learn about it in the doctors office. This is an in-depth look at a subject that until now hasn't been addressed at the level of hormones and diet. As they point out, the folks who put on "Breast Cancer Awareness" month claim that breast cancer can't be prevented. It can, and you'll understand why and how after you read this book. It's time that women took control of their health by being aware and educated, and this book is a great step in that direction. It's well-written, easy to understand and very thorough on the subject of breast cancer.