Original of this article was published on ZRT Laboratory Blog. Last reviewed: May 2026.
October is Breast Cancer Awareness month, with a flurry of activity directed towards “Race for the Cure,” pink ribbons on posters and products, and people on street corners accepting donations to defeat breast cancer. Yet with all this activity over the past 30 years we are no closer to any cure, and breast cancer rates have escalated.
According to the National Cancer Institute, incidences of breast cancer in the US have risen during the past thirty years from 1 in 30 to 1 in 8 women lifetime risk. Agencies that track these statistics are concerned that in the next 10 years it may reach 1 in 5. This is an epidemic. So why aren’t we looking more closely at prevention, and considering what a woman can do to reduce her risk of breast cancer or its recurrence?
Empowering Women to Embrace a Proactive Approach to Prevention
As a Nurse Practitioner for 35 years, I have observed many of the same concerns and parallels in the area of breast disease that researchers now raise about the environmental and dietary links to the upsurge in thyroid cancers.
In 2006 I started utilising FDA-approved infrared (IR) thermography to assess metabolic and physiological activity in breast tissue as a risk assessment tool. Within the first six months of my breast health practice, I found that three-quarters of my patients had borderline thermography scans. A study at Cornell Medical School using the same military/infrared technology was shown to have a 97% sensitivity.
I became increasingly curious as to why some patients had normal IR scans and others did not. Patients with the most normal breast scans were generally organic vegans with a clean lifestyle, while those with abnormal scans were generally at the opposite end of the lifestyle spectrum. At the same time, I discovered that Oregon and Washington State had been testing grounds for Agent Orange in the early 1970s, and that stockpiles of these herbicides and chemicals were used in state agriculture and timber industries until 1998. Many of my own patients had a 30-year exposure to herbicide, including Agent Orange.
The Proactive Breast Wellness Programme
Today, I believe I am the only person in the US looking at the environmental impact of xenoestrogens on breast tissue using an infrared camera. I have compiled over 1,000 pages of free resource materials to create my “Proactive Breast Wellness Program” (PBW)™. My findings strongly suggest that our environment — what we eat, how we live, how we handle stress, and our exposure to chemicals and radiation — may have a greater impact (91–93%) on our future health than bad genetics (7–9%). This is heartening information that allows the possibility that education may empower women to make breast-saving changes in their health.
In my clinical practice using thermography, lab testing (ZRT testing for steroid, adrenal, and thyroid hormones in saliva or blood spot, and steroid metabolites in dried urine) and my PBW protocols, I am able to improve patient outcomes about 65% of the time. This requires women to embrace the protocol over a 6 to 12 month period: eat organically, decrease gluten, optimise thyroid function and vitamin D levels, balance hormones naturally, avoid xenoestrogens, and make the appropriate lifestyle and dietary changes.
To assess the thyroid, adrenal and sex hormone balance that underpins this programme, our Advanced Hormone, Stress & Thyroid Health Test Kit measures thyroid markers, cortisol, DHEA-S and key sex hormones from a simple at-home sample — giving you and your practitioner the data needed to personalise a hormone-balancing protocol.
Optimising vitamin D is a core component of the PBW programme. Our Vitamin D Test (Vitamin D2, D3 and D Total) uses a simple at-home dried blood spot collection to accurately measure your total vitamin D status — essential for anyone following a proactive breast wellness approach.
How Providers Can Help Change Outcomes
Information regarding the metabolic effects of pesticides, herbicides, bovine growth hormones, and a non-organic diet on breast tissue is the first step. Providers should also take into consideration the patient’s overall body burden of xenoestrogens as they determine hormone replacement regimes. We adjust the patient’s prescription according to laboratory hormone levels, but do we also ask if she lives on a farm, works as a florist, does filing in an auto body shop, or has horses and uses pesticide-soaked wipes on her animals? We cannot test a woman’s body burden of bovine growth hormone, Atrazine, Round Up, or 2,4,D Agent Orange, but we can help her learn how to recognise and alter the environmental and lifestyle habits that are putting her at risk.
For a comprehensive view of the hormonal factors involved in breast cancer risk — including oestradiol, progesterone, testosterone, DHEA-S and cortisol — our Neurotransmitter & Saliva Hormone Test I combines a full saliva sex hormone panel with a dried urine neurotransmitter profile, providing a broad picture of the hormonal and neurochemical environment that influences breast health.
The PBW programme is also heart healthy: patients have reduced their cholesterol levels from over 300 to slightly above 200, dropped LDL 30 points, and increased HDL. Women on the PBW programme usually lose 15 to 30 pounds and reduce symptoms of hypothyroidism, and the programme’s dietary recommendations have also improved the health of other family members in the household.
Every middle-aged woman I know is frightened of breast cancer. It does not just affect women; it affects families and whole communities. Now they have hope. Now they can do something. Empower the women in your life and your patients. Prevention IS the Cure.
Original of this article was published on ZRT Laboratory Blog.