The Wellness Forum offers educational programs designed to assist individuals in changing their health outcomes through improved diet and lifestyle habits, mainly Plant Based Nutrition. 

Starting in March, they will be offering Wellness 101 via conference calls. The series will be taught in eight one-hour sessions and we will start a new series every few weeks.  Dr. Popper will be teaching many of these sessions, along with other Wellness Forum staff.  

The calls are live and interactive and open to all current members, even if you already took 101 through a facilitator, a corporation, or other means. The next series is scheduled to start Wednesday March 23 at 8:00 p.m. EDT and run for 8 consecutive weeks:

Wednesdays March 23, 30, April 6, 13, 20, 27, May 4, 11

For questions or to register, call the office at 614-841-7700.  Please let them know that Gretchen Goel referred you!

I will not be contributing money or even “Racing for the Cure” as I’ve stopped participating in this madness since becoming more educated about the cancer industry several years ago.

One thing I discovered after my first cancer charity race was that the majority of these organizations support research that uses animal testing.  Animals undergo unimaginable torture for long periods of time for a cure that will never be found as long as the cancer industry remains a multibillion dollar industry. 

Some people will argue that animals need to be tested for the sake of saving human lives.  Does this make sense when animal tests have been proven to be misleading and potentially dangerous for the evaluation of prescription drugs for human use?   Animals react differently than human beings because they are different from humans.

Tests on animals must be tried out on man through clinical trials before a drug can be considered safe.  Diseases evoked in experiments are not the same as those brought about naturally.  Hundreds of thousands of animals die each year just through vivisection alone.  It is a waste of animal life and a waste of time and money. You can read more about it on the PCRM website.

Pam Popper, Director of the Wellness Forum, has written a beautiful article that talks about where your money really goes when you support the Pink Ribbon campaign and how you can chose to invest your money where it will make a difference in true cancer prevention.  She also explains how much of the prevention through “Early Detection” that is promoted is not really preventing cancer at all.

Endorsement With Time and Money
By Pam Popper, ND 

This article is sure to generate some controversy, but I am motivated to write it anyway based on my very strong convictions about this issue.

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. This annual, month-long campaign was developed by the pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca. The company controls most of the ads, pamphlets and other information disseminated to the public, and the campaign focuses on early detection of breast cancer through mammography. Not much, if any attention, is paid to prevention. This is not surprising since AstraZenenca benefits greatly every time a woman is diagnosed with breast cancer. The company manufactures Tamoxifen, the most widely prescribed breast cancer drug in the world. Incidentally, it also makes acetochlor, a carcinogenic herbicide increasingly suspected as being a cause of breast cancer.

Consumers are urged to do many things in conjunction with breast cancer awareness month. In addition to getting a mammogram, women are encouraged to wear pins with pink ribbons, and to donate money to organizations that fund cancer research. Companies are instructed to place pink ribbons on everything from clothing to office supplies. And there are races, competitions and other activities designed to draw attention to the issue. I think it is very important before you “Think Pink” to investigate and determine what you are really supporting when you participate in these activities and whether or not participation keeps you in integrity with your belief system.

Race for the Cure and other activities are sponsored by lots of different organizations, ranging from the American Cancer Society to the Susan Komen Foundation. I truly believe that the people that work for these organizations think that they are doing something worthwhile. But, the scientific evidence just does not confirm the efficacy of their recommendations.

Take the recommendation to get a mammogram, for example. All women over the age of 40 are encouraged to get a mammogram, but even younger women considered at risk are urged to do so as well. Radiologists at the University of Guttingen in Germany, however, have stated that women with genetic predispositions to develop cancer should avoid mammograms. The reason – low-dose X-rays used in mammograms are almost 3 times as effective in mutating genes in human cells as conventional X-rays. Their advice is for high-risk women to insist on other, safer screening techniques. (1)

And, the National Academy of Sciences has stated that even low doses of radiation pose an increased risk of cancer (2). The cumulative radiation damage to DNA from yearly mammograms increases the risk of breast cancer in later years (3).

One meta-analysis of randomized trials in 1997 showed that screening women between the ages of 40 and 49 resulted in an increase in deaths from breast cancer for the first ten years after the screenings began (4). Another study involving 40,000 women from Canada found breast cancer mortality to be equal between a group receiving annual mammograms and another that had just a physical examination annually (5).

Dr. Ralph Moss is currently writing a series in his newsletter about this issue with equally disturbing information about the advisability of mammograms. To access his editorials, please visit http://www.cancerdecisions.com/.

In addition to the advice about screening, many of these organizations recommend mastectomy, prophylactic mastectomy for women with the BRCA1 and BRCA2 gene mutations, chemotherapy, radiation, and follow-up treatments such as Tamoxifen, even when these treatments show little to no benefit for most women in terms of long-term survival.

Many breast-cancer awareness events and campaigns are promoted by companies that manufacture products that contain cancer-causing agents. The organizations that take money from these companies are inadvertently assisting in perpetuating increases in the cancer rates through use of these products, increases in the number of women who are subjected to disfiguring and life-shortening treatments, all while these companies and organizations give the public appearance of being quite philanthropic.

For example, Avon is the largest corporate funding source for the Komen Foundation and for breast cancer in general. However, Avon manufactures cosmetic products that contain parabens, phthalates and other chemicals that are known endocrine disruptors.

Some of the largest contributors to breast cancer research are those that sell the most toxic products or who stand to gain the most from treatment in those diagnosed. For example, Estee Lauder Companies and Roche Oncology each donate over a million dollars to The Breast Cancer Research Foundation, and AstraZeneca donates between $100,000 and a million dollars as well.

This is why I choose not to run in 5K races that benefit traditional cancer research and treatment, and not to attend fundraisers, wine tastings, and other events that benefit these organizations as well. Although my protest is quite small (none of these events has ever been cancelled because I refused to participate) I refuse to have even one dollar or one minute of my time spent rewarding people and organizations such as these. I am not interested in helping companies such as AstraZeneca, and my belief system does not include prophylactic mastectomy, radiation following lumpectomy, and suppression of promising cancer treatments that are quite successful in other countries.

I would enjoy attending many of these events, and I am under considerable pressure in many instances to participate from well-meaning people who are either trying to help, or just want to have fun also.

But the older I get, the more conscious I become of the fact that everything I do, every penny I spend, even where I am seen, is an endorsement of something, and, for me, the endorsement has to be in integrity with my belief system. I want to endorse health promotion, true prevention, and appropriate treatment, and perhaps someday I’ll sponsor my own series of events for this purpose.

I believe in free choice, and have no interest in talking anyone out of doing anything – whether it be participating in a 5K or undergoing mastectomy. But I also believe in informed choice, and have encountered too many people who simply don’t know much about the beneficiaries of their investment of time and/or money. This article is simply to help people to become more informed investors.

1.www.medicalnewstoday.com/newsid=13423
2.Edwards, R, “Risk of mammograms for certain women,” Times-Herald Record Middletown NY November 12, 2002
3.Gofman, J, Preventing Breast Cancer: The Story of a Major, Proven, Preventable Cause of this Disease, CNR Bk Div 1996, Committee for Nuclear Responsibility
4.Wolfe, S. “Breast Cancer News Info About Screening Mammography and Genetics,” Health Letter vol 20, #1, Jan 2004, Public Citizen Health Research Group
5.Spanier, B, “Do Annual Mammograms Save Lives,” CRABB vol 6 # 3 Summer 2004

Below are 6 tips for Setting and Acheiving Wellness Goals:

1. Before setting health and wellness goals, determine what behaviors you are truly ready to change. If you think are doing fine and don’t need to work on wellness, get real with yourself. We all have behaviors we can work on and improve in this area.

If you think that genetics are in your favor because you have a grandparent who ate steak and potatoes every day of their life, never ate a fruit or vegetable, never exercised, smoked cigarettes daily and lived to be 88…consider also those relatives in your family who have had Cancer, Type II Diabetes, Thyroid Disease, etc., at or before mid life.

Genetics account for only 20-30% of your total health picture. Lifestyle, not genes, are the biggest factor in determining your long term health.

Decide what your ideal health picture should look like. When in your life did you feel and look your VERY best?

Create a vision statement based on how you will look, feel and behave.

Here is a sample wellness vision:
“I will become a more balanced, less stressed, even tempered person who makes health a top priority. ”

2. Set three month goals based on your vision statement. 6 month and one year goals can also be set but setting 3 month goals gives urgency to start working toward the goal today. It’s also best to only work on 3 to 5 changes at a time. When we try to make too many changes at once we can feel overwhelmed and defeated.

3. Determine your INTERNAL MOTIVATORS for change and put them in writing. Why do you want to “run a marathon”, “lose 20 pounds”, “start a weight training program”, etc?

4. Now, figure out what your obstacles are. Do your best friends disapprove of your healthy eating? Are you a night owl but have a goal to start running early in the mornings? List all the people or habits that are keeping you from achieving your goals and come up with a solution as to how you are going to get around those obstacles.

5. What 3 things can you do this week to work toward your three month goals? Make certain you are at least 80% sure you can achieve your weekly goals. If you are not at least 80% sure, you need to cut back at the goal. Maybe run only two mornings this week instead of the four you thought you could do.

6. Who can you be accountable to? If you do not have group support, hiring a Wellness Coach can be a tremendous help! Wellness coaches specialize in helping people with long term, permanent change.

I encourage clients and anyone interested in preventative health to read The China Study. It is 20 years of evidence based research that tells us the healthiest populations on the planet consume a diet centered on plant foods. These populations have almost NO incidence of degenerative disease unlike the United States where Type II Diabetes and Heart Disease have become an epidemic.

How does eating a Plant Based Diet and having healthy habits contribute to making the planet greener?

1. Eating less animal foods means less pollution in our ground water and air from factory farms
2. Eating less animal foods means wasting a lot less water and grains to raise animals from birth to slaughter
3. Eating less animal foods means we have more land to use for growing plant foods which require less resources.
4. And finally eating less animal foods and more nutrient dense plant foods makes populations healthier. They will require fewer pharmaceutical drugs that pollute our environment, especially our water ways.

A Plant Based Diet + Healthy Habits = Optimally Healthy Families and a Greener Planet!