Breast cancer

Breast cancer affects women in every country of the world and at any age after puberty. In 2020, there were more than 2.26 million new cases of breast cancer in women worldwide. Belgium had the highest rate of breast cancer, followed by the Netherlands. Breast cancer is the most common cancer in women in the USA and Europe.

The risk for breast cancer increases with age, as about 80% of women diagnosed with breast cancer are 45 years old or older, and about 43% are 65 or above. The majority (about 70-80%) of breast cancers in women are estrogen-receptor positive, meaning that they need estrogen to grow. Research suggests that estrogen receptor-positive breast cancer is likely to come back more than five years after diagnosis.

In women of reproductive age, estrogen is available from its production in the ovaries, and as such, it can fuel the growth of estrogen-dependent tumors. Therefore, it is important to curb breast cancer cell multiplication in the presence of this hormone. Pharmacological approaches rely on the use of tamoxifen which blocks cellular receptors used by estrogen, or other pharmacological drugs that suppress ovarian function and estrogen synthesis. All these are associated with many side effects. Breast cancer involves many stages, but its basic feature, like other cancers, is excessive and continuous multiplication of abnormal (cancerous) cells that leads to the formation of tumors. Therefore, regular breast exams are important to detect any abnormalities early.

In our search for effective natural means to impair the growth of estrogen-dependent breast cancer cells, we evaluated the effects of specific micronutrients including natural estrogenic compounds from soy and other plants. We exposed breast cancer cells to estrogen and several natural compounds individually and as a complex and evaluated how they affect growth of breast cancer cells.

Human breast cancer cells that depend on estrogen for growth have a high multiplication rate when exposed to this hormone (line 1). The effects of individual natural compounds – vitamins, plant extracts, and other active components – are represented as individual columns from 2 to 6. The taller the column, the higher the growth of breast cancer cells.

These results show that all individual compounds tested here could decrease cancer cell proliferation but to a different degree. The mixture of all these ingredients significantly inhibited cancer cell proliferation by about 40% compared to an estrogenonly control.

The benefits of a combination are superior to each individual component to reach a meaningful inhibitory effect. Also, multiple compounds in the mixture provide numerous benefits by simultaneously affecting a variety of anti-cancer cellular mechanisms (e.g., bioenergy, antioxidant).

0.20

Proliferation rate (OD 450 )

0.15

0.10

0.05 1. Control (β-17-estradiol) 2. Vitamin C 3. Vitamin B complex 4. Vitamin E 5. Iodine

6. Basic Women’s Health Formula,

a combination of the ingredients with other natural compounds.

0

1 2 3

4 5 6