What Women Must Know to Protect
Their Daughters from Breast Cancer
by Dr. Sherrill Sellman, reviewed by EllenSue

Dr. Sherrill Sellman’s groundbreaking book on breast cancer can be described as the ABCs of breast cancer. Using these three letters as a description, the book is alarming, bold, and comprehensive.

The book is alarming as it delineates the relationship between exposure to environmental toxins and the increase in breast cancer in young women. The book is bold because it challenges mothers and grandmothers to become what the Native Americans call the wise women elders. We must look after the future welfare of our offspring by protesting the use of toxic chemicals that are polluting our water, food, and air. And finally, this book is comprehensive, because Dr. Sellman has done an enormous amount of research and packed it into 330 pages of important information.

Dr. Sellman’s book addresses the topic of estrogen dominance, which is exacerbated by prescription hormone replacement therapy and environmental xenoestrogens. Xenoestrogens are chemicals (including plastics) that imitate the effect of the hormone estrogen and are thought to destroy hormonal balance in living beings.

Although much of Dr. Sellman’s book is scientifically written, you need not be a scientist to understand the material presented. While the book is geared to girls and breast cancer, the information can also apply to health issues in men and boys. For example, fetal exposure to hormone disruptors can cause puberty in girls as early as age five, while in boys, the testicles may not descend.

The book covers such topics as estrogen receptors, hormone disruptors, chemicals and birth defects, baby formulas, toxins in the home, foods that support good health, birth control pills and their relation to breast cancer, fats and sweets, and PMS/menstruation.

Dr. Sellman also writes about appreciating the female body and provides a wealth of information on creating healthy bodies with balanced hormones.

This book is a must for every woman’s health library. The information is almost, but not quite, overwhelming. Actually, it is compelling! But don’t read it quickly, because there is just too much to digest. Once you have read it and felt its impact, the book will become a valuable reference. You can’t ignore it! Thank you, Dr. Sellman for all your research and results. Like the Master Card ad, this book is priceless.

What Women Must Know to Protect Their Daughters from Breast Cancer by Dr. Sherrill Sellman, N.D.Brumby Book Distributors, 2005. $24.95.

Note: Check the Breast Cancer Action organization under Profiles. They also focus on envirnomental toxins and their link to breast cancer.

In researching which product(s) I could feature for keeping cancer at bay, I came across an interesting article in www.health.ivillage.com by a dietitian, Diane Grant Dyer, who has had breast cancer twice. She now eats nine servings from the food categories below, so I am featuring all of these “products,” which are readily available in your grocery store, farmers’ market, natural foods store, or if you are lucky, in your very own garden.

I have included some earlier photos of dishes I have prepared for Kitchen Nutrition with Recipes. The date below the photo indicates when the recipe was posted.

Cruciferous veggies: broccoli, broccoli sprouts, brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower
(Cauliflower-Sweet Potato Soup - Jan. 2007)

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Lycopene-rich produce: tomatoes, red grapefruit, watermelon, guava

(There is no recipe for this. It is just a photo of cut up red and yellow watermelon from the Summer of 2006.)

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Beta-carotene-rich produce: winter squash, carrots, sweet potatoes

(Aug.-Sept. 2007- Sweet Potato Salad)

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Citrus fruit: oranges, grapefruit

I don’t have a specific recipe for these two fruits, but I recommend that you eat them in their whole form, not as juice, to get the fiber and other nutrients that dissipate when they are bottled as juice.

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Berries: strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, blueberries
(Very Berry Smoothie-June 2006)

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Dark green, leafy veggies: spinach, romaine, kale, collards, Swiss chard
Actually, any of my green salad recipes will do, since Romaine is almost always in them.
(Simply Salad-March 2006.)

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