Breast Cancer and Yoga: things that make you go Hmmmm?

I'm excited to be starting my Yoga for Cancer Therapy training at Prana Yoga Center in La Jolla tonight. I was reading my pre-assigned homework for this weekend's training and it gave rise to many questions that I would love answered.

An interesting article called Re-Examining Breast Health by Joanna Colwell, suggests that yoga can help you optimize the health of your breasts. The frustrating thing is that all the experts agree that they cannot specifically tell you why you personally got breast cancer. Was it environmental factors? genes? lifestyle? Just being a woman who has breasts? That seems to be the one connecting factor.

The agreed upon primary factors:

You are a Woman.

You have boobs.

Family History--Mother and/or sister: check...but, why did THEY get it?

Lifetime exposure to Estrogen: early onset of menstruation, number of pregnancies, breastfeeding.

Alcohol: 1 drink a day ups risk by 40% (how in the world did they come up with this number??? Reported by people who get breast cancer? by people who kept a log for their entire adult lives of each and every drink? how accurate is that?)

High exposure to Radiation: chest x-rays, radioactive fallout

Stress: okay. Again, how measured?

It seems to me that most of these factors are out of our control. How old we were when Are You There Got Its Me Margaret became a reality? being born a female? hmmm....it all seems so vague. And, while the experts can say things like, a plant-based diet can help protect against cancer, they cannot say, she got breast cancer because she was a vociferous carnivore. There is no clear profile of a breast cancer victim. Woman with breasts. That's it.

Before I get myself all worked up, I do agree that having a lifestyle where stress is minimized and healthy diet and exercise, including yoga are emphasized, can be helpful in disease prevention. I can see it with heart disease, for example. I live that lifestyle.

Here are the questions I have and part of what I hope to learn in the connection between yoga and cancer in general.

How did I, who left the legal profession, then quit my high-stress corporate sales job to immerse myself in teaching yoga full-time, get breast cancer?

Was 20 years of birth control use a factor?

How can yoga help? I understand how it can help while going through treatment: reducing stress, boosting the immune system, stimulating the glands, encouraging lymphatic flow, calming the nervous system. But, how can it help before cancer hits? Does anything we do really prevent cancer? Can we ever know?

Did my car accident in December 2007, that culminated in an artificial cervical disc replacement surgery in 2008 cause this cancer? Did the continual disruption of my yoga practice contribute? Maybe the x-rays and MRI of my neck caused breast cancer? Maybe taking out a disc and replacing it with a titanium and polymer one caused breast cancer? Maybe the stress of it all? Will I ever know?

I look forward to delving into this discussion. I also look forward to some nice meditation tonight.