Flaxseed is one of only a handful of foods considered by the National Cancer Institute to be a designer food, that is, a food that has so many cancer-fighting qualities it's as if it were tailor-made as a medicine, not just a food. Curiously, flax is the only food noted in this book that blocks the estrogen pathway and the estrogen booster effect. That's because it contains that rare combination of a weak estrogen and an omega-3 fatty acid. It's so potent that researchers at the University of Toronto are treating women with breast cancer with flaxseed. The researcher Dr. Lilian Thompson is giving flaxseed to women at the time of diagnosis. As noted earlier, she has shown a decrease in tumor size in women taking flaxseed between the time of diagnosis and the time of surgery. You may feel somewhat shortchanged by the amount of material on flax. Whereas soy has been studied for decades as an estrogen receptor blocker and over a thousand scientific articles and scores of books have been written on it, flax is only now emerging as a factor in breast cancer protection.

Breast Protective Benefits

Flaxseed is the richest known plant source of omega-3 fatty acids and the richest source of weak estrogens, making it a true superfood. Flax can also limit the estrogen in fat cells, limit the booster effect, lengthen the menstrual period, and increase the number of estrogen carriers. That's nearly every step in the estrogen pathway. Pretty amazing stuff!

Dose: Lilian Thompson gives her patients 25 grams per day of brown flaxseed, ground and incorporated in a whole-grain muffin. Since the estrogen blocker is created by the bowel after digesting the flaxseed, only flaxseed, not oil, provides the proper estrogen-blocking effect. It is important that the seeds be ground — grinding breaks the seed s hard outer coat so that the human enzymes have better access to the beneficial elements inside the seed.

Following Dr. Thompson's example, you can grind flaxseed and incorporate it in your baked goods — breads, pancakes, muffins, or cookies. Use your coffee-bean grinder to grind the seeds.

You can also buy a variety of ready-made breads containing flaxseed. The table below lists flaxseed-containing breads available nationwide in health food stores or in stores such as Whole Foods Markets. If stores in your area do not carry a particular bread, call the bakery at the number listed to place an order.

As you can tell from the table of flaxseed breads, few commercially available breads contain enough flaxseed to give you the recommended 25 grams a day in just a few slices. An easy way to make sure you receive your daily 25 grams is to grind the flaxseed and incorporate it into other foods: Put it in your orange juice, sprinkle it on your salad, mix it in applesauce, cottage cheese, or yogurt — be creative!

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Women’s health