Today, I would like to introduce you to my colleague at The UltraWellness Center in Lenox Massachusetts, Dr. Elizabeth Boham. She is a physician who practices Functional Medicine and is a Registered Dietitian.

Among other things, Dr. Boham works every day with women who come to see her to help them decrease their risk of breast cancer. She wrote the following blog to give you some simple steps you can take to substantially decrease your chances of getting breast cancer.

—Dr Mark Hyman

Do you worry about getting breast cancer? Have you already suffered from the disease and are now afraid of a recurrence? I understand why. The incidence of breast cancer is skyrocketing ...

Last year over 200,000 new cases of invasive breast cancer and 60,000 cases of non-invasive breast cancer were diagnosed. A woman’s risk of getting breast cancer has jumped from 1 in 20 in the 1960s to 1 in 8 today. Tragically, more than 40,000 women died from breast cancer alone last year.

Why has there been such a huge escalation in the rates of this frightening disease? What’s the cause of this epidemic and what can we do about it?

Getting to the bottom of these questions is of personal interest to me. When I was 30 years old, I was diagnosed with an aggressive type of invasive breast cancer. At the time I thought I was healthy ...

Before I went to med school my background was in nutrition and exercise physiology. I was an athlete, an avid exerciser, and was careful with my diet. I was young, had no family history of breast cancer, nor any signs of chronic illness.

So when I was told I should have a mass in my breast removed, the last thing I thought it would be was cancer.

How does an otherwise healthy woman get cancer? What did I do wrong? What can I do to reduce my risk of recurrence?

Looking for answers to these questions sent me on a journey through my medical training and eventually to an education in Functional Medicine.

What I discovered on that journey is what I want to share with you in today’s blog.