At the other end of the spectrum

The truth is that all women are at risk of breast cancer just by being female.

Being identified as high risk doesn't mean you'll get cancer, but it does mean that you'll have important decisions to make. One of which may be whether to have prophylactic (preventive) mastectomy — surgery to remove one or both breasts in hopes of preventing or reducing your risk of breast cancer.

If you have a high risk of breast cancer, a prophylactic mastectomy might make you feel better about your future because it can significantly reduce your risk. You might spend less time worrying about your health after your mastectomy.

What a great idea! Thanks Mayo Clinic.

But seriously... hang on, Mayo Clinic are serious when they say that. So let me try that again...

But sanely, education is your best weapon. A diet high in raw organic foods promotes alkalinity in the body. A balanced program of rest and activity, emotional stability, Vitamin D produced by exposing your skin to sunlight. All these things work to prevent cancer. As Jaganatha Misra prabhu said: "Cancer is one of the easiest things to prevent, and one of the hardest to cure."

It's quite American to not worry about identifying lifestyle elements that create disease, but instead take shelter of technology to detect it and "treat" it when it appears. That's one thing I noticed immediately when I went there recently.

Just to be clear here, this is my position:

Western medical science is valuable in acute situations where you have done everything that you can, including removing preventable causative factors, and the situation needs urgent intervention. Life threatening emergencies such as accidents, injuries involving huge blood loss, extremely acute degenerative situations, etc. fall into this category.

Drawbacks include making people think that they can't understand their body and how it should be looked after, and making them feel helpless and at the mercy of mysterious forces which only expensive medical technologies and their qualified high priests can operate.

Further drawbacks include being based on an economic driver which slants the entire practice. It's not medicine - it's business. A similar effect to the "knowledge filters" that Drutakarma and Sadaputa prabhus talk about comes into play. The goal is not to make people well and prevent illness, but rather to make money out of sickness. This changes the whole game plan. It's a sickness industry.

I would only got there if I were really sick. Otherwise, if it's about staying well, stay away. Find other resources for wellness.