Participants: Don Miller, Agatha Thrash
Series Code: HYTH
Program Code: HYTH000158
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00:01 I'm Agatha Thrash, a staff physician at
00:03 Uchee Pines Institute. 00:05 Today, our topic for you is breast disease... 00:08 not only in women but also in men and some in boys. 00:12 So we'd like you to join us. 00:34 Welcome to "Help Yourself to Health" 00:37 with Dr. Agatha Thrash of Uchee Pines Institute. 00:40 And now, here's your host, Dr. Thrash. 00:45 You know, a lot of lifestyle habits have to do with 00:49 the production of breast disease 00:52 Now, we have learned at Uchee Pines Institute 00:55 that a lot of people who have chocolate in their habit 00:59 ...that they are among those who are likely to get 01:03 breast disease of some kind. 01:05 And so, we'd like to talk with you about various 01:08 lifestyle habits, but I'll talk about chocolate first. 01:11 Now the first thing that we can say is that if a woman 01:16 eats a LOT of chocolate, she's very likely to develop 01:19 a condition called fibrocystic breast disease. 01:24 It's a common breast disorder that a lot of women have. 01:28 It's characterized by painful, sometimes swollen lumps 01:33 that may concern her quite a great deal because 01:36 they may be quite hard and not so easily movable... 01:39 especially when they are inflamed. 01:41 A young woman doctor who was about 30, 01:44 was eating chocolate every day of her life... 01:48 until one day, she went to a foreign mission field 01:53 and while she was there for 3 years, 01:55 she could find no chocolate, so she ate no chocolate 01:57 and during that time, she had no breast disease at all. 02:01 Now this was quite remarkable because she had been having 02:04 a biopsy of her breast for approximately 5 or 6 years 02:09 ...once every 18 months. 02:11 So when she came back and realized that when she started 02:14 eating chocolate again, that her breast disease came back, 02:17 she spoke with her surgeon. 02:19 The two of them began to investigate other women 02:22 who had fibrocystic breast disease. 02:24 And sure enough, they found that a number of women 02:29 would cease to have fibrocystic breast disease 02:32 if they gave up the use of chocolate and sometimes coffee, 02:37 tea and colas as well. 02:39 These are beverages that are related. 02:42 Now because fibrocystic breast disease occurs in women, 02:47 and it really is quite common in women... 02:49 you might think... well, women are those who 02:54 get breast disease. 02:55 But it isn't always so... 02:57 There are times when men get breast disease. 03:00 And Dr. Winn Horsley who is my associate at Uchee Pines, 03:04 is going to be talking with you about that. 03:07 So, this is Dr. Winn Horsley. 03:10 He is one of my associates at Uchee Pines... 03:13 and you're going to talk about, is it "genicomastia?" 03:19 or as I've heard you sometimes say it as a Canadian... 03:23 I've sometimes heard you pronounce it... 03:26 what is it... gynecomastia? 03:28 Which do you prefer? 03:30 Well, you know, I've heard plenty of variation 03:32 on so many words in medicine. 03:34 People think that there's only one right pronunciation... 03:36 but reality is different, I think. 03:39 That is true and I think that in the more British-speaking 03:44 countries like Great Britain, they have a 03:48 a completely different way of speaking about 03:51 medical things and they have have a completely 03:53 different terminology. 03:55 So, what do you have to tell us about genicomastia? 03:58 Well, gynecomastia... I would like to just say one little word 04:04 about the term itself. 04:05 I haven't studied this up in the dictionaries but I 04:11 think the roots are well-enough known. 04:15 "Gyneco" is a root that means "woman," 04:19 as in the word "gynecology" 04:20 Mastia refers to the breast. 04:24 You would think that with that kind of a word, 04:26 you'd be talking only about women but, in fact, 04:28 this is used quite specifically for problems that men can have 04:33 in their breasts. 04:36 One young fellow, an adolescent, when I was in medical school, 04:41 came complaining... 04:44 I think it was his mother who actually came and 04:47 talked to me about him having some pain 04:49 right under his nipples, and little lumps there. 04:54 I looked at it... trying to look like I was full of knowledge, 04:59 but I was as green as could be just starting medical school. 05:02 And, he told me about how this was rather tender and 05:07 painful and he was worried... 05:10 You know, was something developing here that 05:13 would need some drastic treatment. 05:16 I studied up some... on the very issue. 05:22 And fortunately, I was able to counsel patients at that time 05:27 and then in following times that I saw him 05:31 could carry on further in explaining that, in fact, 05:33 this often does happen to adolescent boys. 05:38 Now gynecomastia is used, I would say, even more 05:46 to describe abnormal growth of what is actually breast tissue 05:52 in older men. 05:54 So, let's make it clear, we're not talking about someone 05:57 who's fat... especially fatty around the breasts. 06:02 Or, a man that's got well-developed pectoral muscles 06:05 that will bulge at times. 06:06 And if you put the two together, 06:08 sometimes it does look like there's 06:09 quite a breast there in a man. 06:11 But we're talking instead about actual growth of tissue 06:16 and this would be breast kind of tissue. 06:18 The human males do have some breast tissue... 06:24 In fact, it was a surprise to me not long ago, 06:28 to learn that the incidence of breast cancer 06:31 in men is 1 percent. 06:34 And, in fact, it's more dangerous when they get it, 06:36 than women because there's not a large amount of tissue 06:40 there and it will very quickly invade the chest wall. 06:43 Well, this issue of gynecomastia ... breasts starting to grow 06:50 can come on... 06:53 One of the instances that has stuck in my mind as being 06:57 the most important is in alcoholics. 07:01 Most people realize that with alcoholism, 07:05 you're damaging your liver. 07:07 The liver is the big chemical factory of the body, 07:09 and it handles processing of hormones. 07:13 Both men and women produce some of both 07:17 of the sexes' hormones. 07:18 In other words, men do have things like estrogen 07:23 in their body and, if they're not going to accumulate, 07:25 they have to be gotten rid of by the liver. 07:27 Well, a poisoned liver, a damaged liver 07:29 such as occurs in alcoholism doesn't do this... well. 07:33 And, therefore, there can be this abnormal stimulation 07:38 of whatever breast tissue is there... to start growing. 07:43 A number of other things can lead to gynecomastia and the 07:48 principal point here is drugs. 07:51 There is a fair list of drugs that will do this... 07:55 Obviously hormone type of drugs would do it. 08:00 But, aside from hormones there are others such as... 08:05 digitalis... a drug that used for the heart, 08:11 Reserpine that has been used for high blood pressure, and 08:16 quite a long list of possible drug causes of gynecomastia. 08:24 Now aside from those that are considered medical type of drugs 08:31 We have an example in the illicit drugs... 08:36 marijuana use... 08:37 It has been specifically linked with gynecomastia in males. 08:43 Well that's very interesting and I appreciate that very much. 08:47 You know, we have a lot of problem nowadays with women 08:52 not knowing how to do breastfeeding. 08:55 It has been shown that if a woman breastfeeds, 08:57 she's less likely to have certain types of diseases 09:00 especially cancer of the breast. 09:02 And so, I'd like to show you how a woman should know 09:06 how to do this kind of little office for her infant... 09:13 And here, I have a very nice chart which shows the positions 09:17 that the mother can use in helping her baby to nurse 09:22 and that will be comfortable for her. 09:24 Here is one which is probably most common when the baby 09:28 simply sort of sits in her lap 09:29 and she feeds the baby with the right breast. 09:33 The left breast can be fed with the infant actually behind the 09:39 mother... such as you see here. 09:41 You can see that the infant is sort of tucked under 09:45 the mother's left arm and she is feeding the baby 09:48 from the left breast. 09:49 Then there is also the partial tucked under the left arm 09:54 of the baby with the nipple of the right breast... 09:59 the one that the baby is nursing from. 10:01 But the one that many women like a lot is the one that 10:06 you see here... where the mother is lying down. 10:09 This is often what occurs in the nighttime when the baby 10:13 must be fed during the night, 10:15 then she can continue to lie down and simply take the baby 10:19 cradled in her arm in this way. 10:23 Now, how does she get the baby to take hold... 10:26 That is called "latching on"... 10:28 And here we see that the mother somewhat pinches up her breast 10:31 She supports it from below and sort of squeezes 10:34 a little bit from above and then makes it so that the nipple 10:38 stands out. 10:39 If she just strokes the baby's cheek a little bit, 10:42 the baby will usually open the mouth and turn toward the breast 10:46 And then as the baby moves toward the breast... 10:50 or as she moves the baby toward the breast, 10:51 then she puts the nipple in the baby's mouth. 10:55 Now, the baby gets a good hold on the nipple 10:59 and does not want to turn loose... 11:01 And so consequently, if she wants to feed 11:04 from the other breast, she must disengage the baby 11:09 who is latched on to her with a good bit of suction, 11:13 by simply inserting her finger in the corner of the mouth 11:16 of the baby and that will allow air to go in and 11:22 break the very tight seal that the baby has made 11:25 with the breast. 11:26 And so by doing this, she can perform an important office 11:32 for her baby. 11:34 I don't make a lot of house calls anymore since it became 11:37 so dangerous for women to be out at night alone or even 11:41 out in the daytime alone. 11:43 But generally have people to come to me. 11:46 But there is one reason why I will make a house call... 11:50 And that is if a young mother is threatening to 11:52 stop breastfeeding her baby. 11:54 I generally go, study the way that she does her breastfeeding 11:59 ...how she sits, how she holds the baby, 12:01 the timing of it and all of this kind of thing 12:04 so that I can help her to know that she does not, 12:08 for the most part, need to stop feeding her baby. 12:11 Now, we have here some things about food... 12:15 And... ohh, this looks SO good! 12:19 And I think it's made out of soy... 12:21 It looks very much like a dish that would be good 12:25 for the breast because soy is one of those foods. 12:28 This is Lidia Seda who is my colleague at Uchee Pines. 12:33 She's a Lifestyle counselor... Lidia 12:35 Yes, Dr. Agatha, tofu is quite good for the breast 12:38 and for breast cancer. 12:40 Why? Well, one thing that it has is that it helps 12:44 to lower LDL and LDL is a fat. 12:48 It's not a fat that's beneficial for the body... 12:50 Number 1, it can contribute to atherosclerosis 12:54 and there have been studies in France that show that 12:57 women who eat high amounts of fat, 13:01 will have greater tendencies of getting breast cancer. 13:05 So this is why tofu is an excellent meal to help reduce 13:09 the chances or the likelihood of acquiring 13:13 an illness like breast cancer. 13:15 ALSO, it is high in protein. 13:19 It has about 7.8% protein and is nearly nutritionally complete 13:25 Also, it has iron... about 4.7 mg of iron. 13:29 Now the recommended daily allowance is about 13:33 15 mg for women and 12 for men. 13:37 So if you were to eat about 8 ounces of tofu, 13:40 you will be getting about a fourth of your daily 13:43 recommended requirements. 13:46 Yeah... that's very good. 13:47 So soy is a very nice addition to the American diet 13:53 and, unfortunately, it isn't used as much as it should... 13:55 And I see you have a package here of tofu... 13:58 Where did you get that? 13:59 Well, this was purchased at a health food store 14:03 but you can actually buy this nowadays in ANY supermarket 14:06 It's become quite popular to purchase tofu. 14:08 And something else very interesting about tofu is... 14:12 that it can help individuals, especially women, 14:15 who are either premenopausal, postmenopausal, 14:19 or who are actually going through menopause at this time. 14:23 What happens is, because of its high estrogen, 14:26 it can help not allow those intense episodes of heat to 14:31 be so bothersome... what we would normally call hot flashes. 14:35 So it's very beneficial for women who are going 14:37 through those experiences. 14:39 Where do you buy this... in the frozen foods department, 14:41 or is it on the shelves? 14:43 Well this particular package would be in the 14:46 frozen foods department. 14:47 And now there are other packages that you can buy 14:50 in a box... that you would get just off the shelf as well... 14:55 And they can be used to make a tofu cheesecake if you like. 14:58 Well, do you have a recipe for this delightful dish 15:02 that you showed us earlier? 15:03 Yes... This dish, right here, is called "chipped tofu" 15:05 and this dish... what you would do is you would have a broth 15:09 of what we call "chicken-style seasoning" and water. 15:13 As a matter of fact, you would need: 15:14 2 cups of water and 1 TB of chicken style seasoning 15:19 Along with the following ingredients: 15:40 And this will make a gravy. 15:41 You have then your cubed tofu 15:44 and then you put your gravy with your tofu together... 15:49 You let it boil a little bit... a gentle boil 15:51 And then you have chipped tofu which you can place 15:54 over whole grain brown rice. 15:56 It sounds good and the rice, as I can see there 15:59 looks a little bit different... 16:01 It looks a little fluffy... How'd you get it to do that? 16:03 Well, what I did, Dr. Thrash, is that I placed it in a 16:10 skillet and I dextrinized it for about 30 seconds to 60 seconds. 16:16 And what that does is to help brown it. 16:20 By dextrinize, you mean you heat it, 16:22 and it browns a little bit... Exactly... that's very good. 16:25 You heat it, it browns a bit and this actually cuts 16:29 the cooking time and makes the rice taste 16:31 a little bit nuttier. Ah ha... 16:33 And I placed it in a slow cooker, actually a crock pot 16:37 and after 2 hours, I have nice fluffy rice, not gummy rice 16:41 but fluffy rice. 16:43 I like sticky rice too but most Americans like nice fluffy rice. 16:49 And the wonderful thing about whole grain rice, brown rice... 16:52 is that it has ALL the nutrients that you need, 16:56 especially if someone is trying to combat a cancer 16:59 It has the antioxidants and phytochemicals 17:02 that the individual needs to help guard against cancer 17:04 And it's true that some white rice has the nutrients placed 17:09 back in but usually not ALL the nutrients... 17:11 And we need all the nutrients we can get to be able to 17:15 fight these types of illnesses like breast cancer. 17:18 So that's why I recommend the brown rice 17:21 instead of the white rice. 17:22 Very good, and in places of the world where they use 17:25 a lot of rice, of course, they do have healthier breasts 17:29 and they are much more likely to be strong and 17:33 resistant against a variety of diseases. 17:38 And we have also a number of other 17:41 lifestyle problems that can make us more 17:45 susceptible to disease. 17:46 Another problem that women have is that they often 17:50 wear a lot of padding across the chest and this padding 17:53 or even padded bras or very thick vests, 17:57 that they may wear across the chest... all of these 18:00 can cause a problem for a woman who has a susceptibility 18:05 to problems with the breast... like fibrocystic breast disease 18:09 or cancer of the breast. 18:11 So, one thing that I always teach women to do is 18:16 to be careful about excessive padding on the chest. 18:21 Uplift bras which change the configuration of the breast 18:25 may also be a problem and a source of breast disease for 18:30 women, and of course, a lot of discomfort. 18:32 So the newer bras that do not count on a lot of padding 18:36 and a lot of uplift... these are more helpful 18:39 than the kinds of bras that women have been wearing 18:43 in recent years. 18:45 Now, not only do we have these kinds of lifestyle problems, 18:51 but a lot of other kinds of things are 18:53 involved in the breast. 18:54 And I have here, Don Miller, is one of my counselors at 18:59 Uchee Pines... He's a Lifestyle counselor 19:01 and a longtime colleague... 19:02 And he's going to talk with you now about some other 19:04 lifestyle issues. 19:06 There are some real important things we can do... 19:09 and I want to start with children. 19:10 Even a young girl who takes soybean products 19:14 and Lidia just got done talking about tofu 19:16 which is a popular tofu product, 19:19 but a young girl who takes soy products, 19:22 as a young girl, reduces her risk of breast disease 19:26 by 50% as she gets older. 19:28 And that woman who continues to take soy products 19:32 throughout her life reduces her chances even more. 19:34 And the instance of soy products on the market 19:38 are just unbelievable. 19:41 I use a soymilk all the time. 19:43 And that's my favorite type of milk. 19:45 As a matter of fact, we recommend for women with 19:47 breast disease and breast cancer not to use cow's milk 19:50 because that increases the growth of breast cancers 19:55 But we have soy products... 19:56 As a matter of fact, this one has that little 19:58 international symbol of breast disease, 20:02 or sympathy for people with breast disease... 20:04 The little pink ribbon... and this comes on these containers. 20:07 And they're telling you, "This is good. " 20:10 Another nice thing about soy products, 20:12 and I like this... is normally if it's a 20:14 soy product, you don't have this long list of ingredients 20:19 This is the way I do my shopping... 20:21 Whenever I go shopping, if I want to find if a product 20:24 that I want to eat is good, I take off my glasses 20:28 and I look at the ingredients. 20:30 And if I can't read the ingredients, which are 20:32 usually in very, very small print, 20:34 I figure there are things in there I don't think I 20:36 want to put in my body. 20:37 As a matter of fact, sometimes I have to take a magnifying 20:41 glass just to discover what other people are eating 20:43 and say, "I don't think we want those things in our bodies" 20:45 As a matter of fact, I'm reading in this one... 20:47 something that's not good for women who have breast 20:50 disease... and that would be a hydrogenated fat. 20:52 And so, if you see hydrogenated fats, or partially hydrogenated 20:56 fats... don't use those things. 20:58 They're bad for women with breast cancer. 21:01 And so, find things that you can read without your glasses 21:04 and if you got great eyesight, still... only 4 or 5 ingredients 21:08 But there are many, many soy products out there. 21:11 There are the soymilks... 21:12 There is the tofu that Lidia talked about... 21:14 There are soy cheeses. 21:16 There are soy cream cheeses. 21:18 There are soy sour cheeses... yeah, right. 21:20 There are soybeans. 21:22 There are baked soybeans and Henry Ford once 21:24 made a soy car. 21:26 And so, there are lots of things you can do with soybeans 21:28 and I suggest that we eat those things 21:30 because they'll make our bodies feel a whole lot better. 21:32 But there are other things besides soy products 21:35 that we can eat that will make our bodies safer 21:37 and NOT just the women who might get or do have 21:40 breast cancer, but ALL of US should be eating these things 21:43 As a matter of fact, our mothers have been telling us 21:45 how to prevent all these cancers since we were children. 21:47 She'd lean over and she'd say, "Eat your vegetables" 21:50 And so, we should eat our vegetables. 21:52 The Brassica family... The cruciferous family... 21:55 The mustard family... 21:56 All of these foods... Now what are in these families? 21:58 Well, you've got your bok choy, your cauliflower, 22:01 your brussel sprouts... all these different foods 22:07 You got your mustard greens, your collard greens, 22:10 your kohlrabi... 22:11 A lot of different foods in these families 22:14 Just eat your green leafy vegetables... that's a nice 22:16 way to put it... eat your green leafy vegetables, 22:19 it will help with the breast cancer. 22:21 Other things that you can do... 22:22 I've already talked about staying away from 22:24 the hydrogenated fats... 22:26 Flaxseed! 22:27 Flaxseed is a nice anti-inflammatory 22:30 I would suggest you get some flax SEEDS... 22:32 Don't get ground flaxseed because it oxidizes 22:35 very, very fast... it goes bad and it will become rancid 22:38 in just a couple of days. 22:40 Get some flaxseed and every morning, 22:42 grind you up a tablespoonful and put it over your food. 22:45 Very, very good for women who have breast cancer 22:48 It's as a preventive of breast cancer, 22:50 and a good food for anybody with any inflammatory 22:53 response anywhere in their body. 22:56 There are other things that you can do for your breast cancer... 23:00 Stay away from dairy milk. 23:01 I think I've already mentioned that. 23:02 Dairy milk promotes breast cancer and it's best to 23:06 stay away from the dairy milk 23:08 and the dairy products altogether. 23:09 And if we do some of these very SIMPLE things, 23:12 that God has shown us to do, we will have a good chance to 23:15 fight the breast cancer and, even better, 23:17 to avoid getting the breast cancer in the first place 23:19 and so, mothers, feed it to your children... 23:22 Mothers, feed it to yourselves. 23:24 Fathers, boys, everybody... eat the soy products 23:27 because I believe this is the way we should be going 23:30 in our society today... Dr. Thrash. 23:32 And also... there are just soybeans... 23:35 We can just take the soybeans... 23:37 There are nice recipes for scrambled soybeans. 23:40 I like that very much and then just boil up some nice 23:44 soy limas... they are also delightful. 23:47 And, eaten every day, they encourage good, strong 23:52 bones and a lot of other things. 23:53 And you can roast them like peanuts... Oh yes! 23:55 And there is soy peanut butter... soy nut butter 23:58 So, these are all very good. 23:59 A lot of GOOD soy products today on the market. 24:02 So I'm very thankful that we can have all these products 24:06 that are so strengthening to the body. 24:10 We've talked about gynecomastia, as the Canadians say it. 24:15 And I'd like to find out a little bit about the treatment 24:20 And so, I have asked that Dr. Winn Horsley 24:24 would talk with you again, a little bit about the 24:26 treatment for gynecomastia. 24:28 Okay, Dr. Thrash. 24:31 Well the treatment is very simple. 24:34 We've mentioned that in the cases of drugs, 24:40 you can get quite a few different drugs that will 24:42 CAUSE gynecomastia. 24:44 We didn't even list them all but they're really quite 24:46 common drugs. 24:49 Stopping them... generally brings about healing... 24:52 Brings about total resolution of the problem. 24:54 If we're talking about the young man that I mentioned, 24:59 the adolescents that sometimes get these little tender areas 25:03 in their breasts, just wait... just give a few weeks 25:07 to months and that generally clears up quite well. 25:10 Well, that's all we need to know then... thank you so much. 25:14 For women who have a family history of having problems 25:21 with the breast, they need to understand the number of things 25:23 in the care of the breasts. 25:26 Let me just mention several things that we have 25:29 in our counseling sheet for patients. 25:31 One is to keep the breasts very small... 25:35 Doing so has multiple advantages. 25:37 One is that you, yourself, can feel any abnormal density 25:42 or a lump that may develop in the breast. 25:45 Also, when you're getting a physical examination, 25:48 the physician can locate breast problems better 25:53 in the small breast... 25:54 And a second thing, the more overweight the breast is, 25:58 the more likely it is to develop a cancer. 26:01 Then, daily cleansing of the nipples with a daily shower 26:06 especially for younger women whose breast 26:10 secretions are quite a lot... 26:12 this will help to keep the nipples in good shape. 26:17 Then an injury of the breast... 26:19 Which we now know is a precursor of cancer 26:22 of the breast in some women... 26:24 Injury to the breast should be treated. 26:26 Such as with contrast baths... hot and cold 26:29 Hot compress for 3 minutes, and a cold compress, 26:34 or even an ice compress for about 30 seconds 26:36 Repeat this again and again for about 3 to 5 exchanges 26:42 on a daily basis until the breast is no longer tender 26:46 or blue if there was a bruise there. 26:51 Then the first day of each season, a woman needs 26:55 to examine her breasts herself. 26:58 That means that she should look at the breasts 27:01 in a mirror... especially with a light coming in from the side 27:05 so that any highlights of any lump, or increased density 27:11 in the breast could be easily seen. 27:13 Then, she needs to have the hands very slippery 27:17 such as might occur if she were in the shower 27:20 or when she's lying down to massage the breasts 27:26 with her hands in all quadrants so that she can 27:30 turn up any kind of breast lesion 27:33 that might be there. 27:34 It is our Heavenly Father's desire that we should 27:37 prosper and be in health. 27:40 In fact, He has had His prophet to say that very thing. 27:42 "That above all things, He desires that we prosper 27:46 and be in health. " 27:47 It is our desire that we can teach you some things 27:50 that will be of eternal blessing 27:52 to you and to your family. |
Revised 2014-12-17