Breasts: An Owner’s Manual: Every Woman’s Guide to Reducing Cancer Risk, Making Treatment Choices and Optimising Outcomes. Kristi Funk
weather that accounts for these global disparities. If this freaks you out, you’re not alone.
Based on my experience as a board-certified breast cancer surgeon who has helped tens of thousands of women navigate breast health issues, I know for a fact that we have the power to reduce our breast cancer risk in achievable and dramatic ways. Enter our second big problem with breast cancer awareness: erroneous public perception. Most women believe that family history and genetics determine who gets breast cancer, but for most people, they don’t. Inherited mutations, like BRCA, only cause 5 to 10 percent of breast cancer; in fact, 87 percent of women diagnosed with breast cancer do not have a single first-degree relative with breast cancer.1
I’ll give you a minute to pick your jaw up off the floor.
For the last thirty years, the medical community has not corrected the false notions held by the majority of breast cancer survivors who attribute their breast cancer entirely to family history, environmental factors, stress, or fate—all factors predominantly not under their direct control.2 Yet research tells us that if, before reaching menopause, women embrace a lifestyle that prioritizes exercise, not smoking, not drinking alcohol, and a diet shifted away from meat and dairy toward whole food, plant-based eating, their odds of getting breast cancer are slashed in half. And for older women, risk drops by 80 percent.3
That’s right. You have the opportunity to impact the way you behave toward your breasts and how your breasts respond to that behavior. Rigorous science and firsthand experience in the trenches back up everything I know to be true about breast cancer risk reduction and care. The women I treat are exactly like you. They share your concerns about any new mammogram finding, pain, lump, itch, or discharge. They want to know if there’s anything new under the sun that they can do to ward off this disease. Most of the patients who heed my diet, lifestyle, and medical advice come away from our conversations feeling empowered and relieved, gaining clarity over “the right thing to do.” Depending on the changes they make, women might also notice that their fibrocystic lumps and pain disappear, their obesity or diabetes improves, or they find themselves cancer-free year after year.
I must mention here that having an unhealthy lifestyle doesn’t guarantee a future breast cancer diagnosis; similarly, we can never know with certainty that lifestyle choices caused the cancer you might have already had. Moreover, even women following an ideal lifestyle get breast cancer (although not as frequently, as we shall repeatedly see), and boy, are they upset. “I did everything right!”
That being said, the changes I’m about to suggest in this book don’t just serve your breasts well. Oh no, ladies. They also yield lower cholesterol, better triglycerides, perfect blood pressure, fewer heart attacks, a leaner body, less diabetes, painless joints, more energy, better sleep, a happier mood, an improved sex life, a sharper mind, less dementia, smoother skin, regular bowel movements, cleaner lungs, less cancer in every single organ in your body, a healthier planet, and a longer life. If you practice what I teach, you will radically reduce, if not completely prevent, many of the illnesses that ultimately lead to chronic and life-threatening diseases. You’ll feel a boost of happiness and satisfaction. You’ll implement your goals with ease—and never look back.
A PIONEERING APPROACH TO BREAST HEALTH
Since I founded the Pink Lotus Breast Center in Los Angeles in 2007 alongside my husband, Andy Funk, our mission has been to fuse state-of-the-art breast cancer screening, diagnosis, and treatment with preventive strategies and holistic, compassionate care. We’re out to save lives in a way that eliminates fear, instills confidence, and provides hope in a moment of panic. Pink Lotus aims to transform the delivery of breast health care in America and to help as many women as possible, regardless of their income or status in life. We see thousands of patients every year, with a wide range of concerns, and do our best to accept most insurances, including Medicare. For low-income uninsured or underinsured women, the Pink Lotus Foundation provides 100 percent free breast cancer screenings, diagnoses, treatment, and support to those who otherwise might not be able to receive any care at all.
I am incredibly grateful that occasionally working with prominent celebrity voices affords me the unique opportunity to get my message about breast health and risk reduction into the world. Three days after I removed Sheryl’s breast cancer, she arrived in my office with a paper in hand and revealed, “I want to go public about this. Can you please fact-check this press release?” And Angelina Jolie’s New York Times op-ed, “My Medical Choice,” led to a permanent increase in BRCA testing documented around the world.4 I consider it an honor and duty to continue the conversations they started.
While I’m best known as a surgeon, my ultimate mission as a physician is to get to people before they need to go under the knife. I do everything I can to teach others about breast health—I appear on television, contribute to our Pink Lotus Power Up blog, give lectures, publish articles, perform research, and sponsor campaigns. I want to empower you with facts and arm you with strategies to help you understand your breasts, reduce your cancer risk, and open your eyes to life-changing interventions and treatments if you are diagnosed with the disease.
HOW TO USE THIS BOOK
Educating yourself on breast health simply requires a commitment to living your best life. We should never die from something we can largely control. Can we control breast cancer? Admittedly, a percentage of breast cancer occurs in women who seem to have mastered all the things that promise to maintain health and wellness throughout life. Until that elusive cure or prevention vaccine shows up, our best efforts will occasionally be thwarted by uncontrollable mutations and unrecognized causes. Nevertheless, you do have significant power over this disease—let’s use it. A solid 50 percent—and perhaps as much or more than 80 percent—of all breast cancer could be eliminated from planet Earth if women understood that daily choices like food, drink, exercise, weight, toxic exposures, and mind-set create the environment inside the very cells of our breasts, which either stay healthy or turn malignant.5 Every single day, we make countless choices that bring us closer to cancer or move us farther away. The easiest cancer to cure is the one you never get.
Here’s what you can expect as you move through all these pages. I suggest reading the entire book to best comprehend all the important information it contains, but I certainly understand if you want to jump directly to the sections that apply to you and your interests. To that end, let me give you a little direction so you can navigate straight to the topics that intrigue you most.
In the first half of the book, I focus on boosting your breast savvy and teaching about lifestyle choices that reduce your breast cancer risk. In part 1, you’ll learn how to care for your breasts and never again mind the myths surrounding breast cancer’s causes. I have spent much of the last two decades researching the connection between lifestyle and cancer, and many of the things you’ve heard cause breast cancer are false. In part 2, we’ll discuss what else you can do besides showing up for your yearly mammogram and hoping that you don’t find a lump in the following 364 days. I’ll help you reduce your cancer risk based on food and lifestyle changes, particularly those that keep estrogen in check, since estrogen fuels 80 percent of all breast cancers. The healthiest meals are plant-based, low fat, and high fiber: an abundance of fresh fruits and vegetables (preferably organic), 100 percent whole grains like brown rice and oats, nonanimal proteins such as lentils, beans, and soy, with a cup of green tea on the side. I will also talk about choices like supplements, exercise habits, weight control, and hormones that can impact risk.
In the second half of the book, I’ll explore uncontrollable risk factors for breast cancer, plus outline your medical choices if you’re at elevated risk for, newly diagnosed with, living with, or navigating life after breast cancer. In part 3 specifically, I’ll detail the operations and medications that mitigate risk. I field a lot of questions from patients about genetics and BRCA mutations in particular, and will share the latest research on mutations and what they mean for you. The key with uncontrollable risks is to understand them and then to use them to inform controllable