A healthy take on breast cancer
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), 627 000 people died from the disease throughout the world, last year, which is a huge number and it seems to be increasing.
HEALTH is not valued until sickness arrives. This is the notion that health coach and integrative wellness advocate, Dr Carmen James seeks to prevent by promoting a natural lifestyle that reaps the greatest health benefits.
As a health coach, who has a decade of experience in medicine, Carmen has turned her focus on educating and empowering people on the basic building blocks of life and how to make the most of them in order to be healthy. She hosts workshops, has one-on-one sessions and a weekly radio slot on East Coast Radio where she unpacks the topic of breast cancer awareness prevention during the month of October.
“I am passionate about teaching people about health. I had a lot of exposure with cancer while practising as a doctor, working with cancer patients. My grandmother also had breast cancer and eventually died as a result. Breast cancer awareness is so important, because honestly speaking, women shouldn’t be dying from breast cancer because the reason why it can result in death is due to it spreading to other parts of the body. Awareness is all about placing emphasis on early detection, encouraging women to examine their breasts, to go for their mammograms and get familiar with their breasts so that they will be able to tell if there is something unfamiliar and pick it up early. Breast cancer is becoming a lot more common. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), last year 627 000 people died from the disease throughout the world, which is a huge number and it seems to be increasing. I believe that our awareness needs to increase.
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“Data tells us that cancer happens and that there isn’t much that we can do to prevent it. However, the Department of Health’s information on risk factors of breast cancer, notes diet, alcohol consumption, smoking, exercise, obesity and stress as contributing factors. Yes, there are a lot of things that one cannot control to prevent being at risk of breast cancer, such as genes, family history and ageing, but there some things and lifestyle habits that we can implement to lessen the risk and that is what I’m all about – educating people and reducing the risk.
Carmen studied medicine at the University of KwaZulu-Natal and qualified in 2007. She shared that she didn’t quite enjoy studying and practising medicine. “I never really fit anywhere and so I found myself jumping from one job to another within the field of medicine. I worked in a lab, wards in government, private hospitals, ships and also specialised in haematology at some point but I was still never really fulfilled. Although it may sound strange, I eventually realised that I didn’t feel like I was really helping people in a real way. I felt that the medication that we were giving patients was not addressing the underlying root cause of the disease, but rather just the symptoms. And so I began to get curious about what exactly makes people healthy because in medicine you’re told a lot about what makes people sick and how to detect, diagnose and treat disease but they don’t focus on what makes people healthy in order to avoid disease. That has since become my mission, to promote health and a healthy lifestyle in people.”
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The Bluff doctor left practising medicine and studied health coaching as well as integrative medicine which is a practice that seeks to get to the root cause of disease by focusing on all the aspects of health and lifestyle. “I started to uncover the idea that what we were hoping to solve with a pill was actually not the solution. There is no pill on the earth that is going to solve the vast complexities of health. Finally, I feel like this is more in line with my values and what I believe we should be teaching people, through a holistic approach.”
Carmen encourages a plant-based, or at the very least a well-balanced diet, exercise and sweat, minimise alcohol consumption and maintaining a healthy diet, not a diet as she believes that diet culture is often centred around societal pressures instead of ensuring good health and well-being.
Her advice to anyone on their personal healing journey with breast cancer: “You are never alone, there a number of organisations that are doing fantastic work to support cancer patients. Never look at yourself as a victim but rather use your painful situation as an opportunity to come back as a better version of yourself and as one that is going to tell a story of impact and influence for others. We are really powerful beyond measure and by simply tapping into that we can reclaim our health. Essentially and more than anything, never give up,” she encouraged.
For more health inspiration and breast cancer awareness follow Carmen on her social media platforms: Instagram and Facebook: @dr.carmenjames, or www.drcarmenjames.com or email her on dr@carmenojames.com.
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