Janet Van Dam

About – Janet Van Dam

Her passion is to help people achieve optimal health by natural means.

Her specific interest is the health of women, especially younger women, who are not yet offered a breast health check and women during menopausal years.

In 2010, she trained as a medical thermographer and nutrition coach. She has a personal motivation to why she chose this profession: her mother died of breast cancer at 51 years of age, of a tumour, that was not identified during her annual mammogram. A few years later, her sister found her own tumours at the age of 28.

With the knowledge that mammography can not see tumours well in dense breast tissue of young women and of women during menopausal years, when hormones are changing, she decided to become a thermographer to provide this valuable preventive service to especially those women, who are not yet offered a breast health check yet or to women who prefer not to have radiation or compression of the breasts.

Thermography is a complementary functional test, which can warn of changes in the body and therefore also in the breasts and can make us aware early that something has changed thermally.
An annual breast thermogram is optimal for monitoring breast health.

Metabolic diseases such as type II Diabetes, heart disease, cancer but also hormonal changes can be improved by reducing inflammation in the body through a low carbohydrate diet.

Most important to Janet is the importance of a positive and lasting change in human health through education and self-responsibility without inflicting any harm on mind and body.

Breast Thermography

Breast Thermography is a preventative breast health strategy rather than a test focussing on breast disease. It is presently the only functional test available to monitor and visualise breast health. How Medical Thermography can help you monitor your breast health is that it looks for any increased, irregular or abnormal blood flow or activity in the breasts, which could indicate the development of disease.

Abnormal blood flow in one particular area could indicate the development of malignancy, because a tumour needs a blood supply to feed it. This process is usually visible earlier with infrared screening compared to a mammogram, because a mammogram can only see the end result of a disease process (lump or tumour). Angiogenesis is a process which is invisible on X-ray.

Besides looking for this unusual blood supply, we can visualise general changes relating to fibrocystic activity, hormone activity, lymphatic congestion or inflammatory processes, because these conditions can be fore-runners of the development of breast disease, e.g. high levels of oestrogen or blocked lymphatic drainage. Making changes to your diet and lifestyle can significantly help improve these conditions.

A positive thermogram has a highly predictive value for the development of disease in the future. Therefore ongoing regular monitoring can help you and your practitioner be breast health aware.

The advantage of thermal screening is that it is equally accurate in all age groups: dense breast tissue (mainly of younger women but not exclusively) is not relevant to the accuracy of thermography compared to mammography, since we do not need to look deep inside the breasts to make an assessment of health. Mammography however is significantly less accurate in this younger age group.

Another advantage is that thermal imaging is absolutely radiation and pain free. There is no need to touch you when taking the images, so no compression of the breasts, which many women find extremely unpleasant to say the least. And no radiation gives peace of mind to many, especially to those women who want to breast feed or simply want to avoid the accumalative high radiation dose.

Body Thermal imaging

Thermography is not only valuable in the early detection of breast disease, it can also bring to light unidentified sources of pain in the body, which may be due to varicose veins, ligament damage, nerve entrapment, inflammation of tissues or organs, circulatory diseases, digestive issues or immune disease, just to name a few. For example: we can look at the metabolic function of the thyroid, sinuses, carotid arteries, teeth, digestive system, kidneys, and identify neuropathic or circulation problems in hands and feet related to diabetes or metabolic syndrome.

Diabetic ulcers can be identified before they have come to the surface and preventative action can then be taken with a low carb diet to reduce the risk of further development and reverse symptoms.

Fibromyalgia: thermography can help your health practitioner make a positive diagnosis for Fibromyalgia and ME. Both Fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue have many changing symptoms making it hard to know for sure what is going on, but DITI can help your doctor “see” the inflammation patterns in your body and will be able to help you in the best way possible.

Low Carb Lifestyle

“Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food”
Hippocrates – Father of Medicine

It has been known for at least the last 300 years within our western European society that cutting out starchy carbohydrates can make you lose weight and improve overall health. Recently also the carnivore diet has gained momentum, especially in relation to healing chronic diseases of the gut, cutting out ALL plant materials to stop fibre irritating the gut wall and repaiiring the tight junctions of the epithelial cells of the digestive tract.

Although definitely not a new idea, in recent years we are hearing in (social) media more and more about the benefits of a low sugar and low carbohydrate diet, especially in relation to controlling and preventing diabetes, symptoms of metabolic syndrome like high blood pressure, abdominal obesity, hormone imbalances, high blood glucose, and to help heal or prevent cancer.

The recommended diet that comprises of low fat, vegetable oils and margarines and high carbohydrate, which was advised to us in the 1970, has proven after nearly 50 years to be a disaster. More people than before are eating processed foods, too much plant foods, all things that our biology cannot sustain health on long term. We have more obesity and diabetes than ever before, which should never be. We have lost the ability to connect to our natural state, which is of the species human.

My strategy is to help you understand a few basic biological processes in your body so you will have the knowledge and therefore the ability to choose better nutrition for you and your loved ones with the aim to improve your current health or more preventively, keep you well for as long as possible.

Thermography Screening procedure

Because medical thermal imaging requires a standard protocol for your health study, you will be required to prepare your body so to speak. You will receive information on how to do this when booking your appointment and during the appointment you will be asked to undress and stand or sit for 10 to 15 minutes to acclimatise your body skin temperature to that of the room. All of this is done in a professional, private and confidential setting.

The breast thermography appointment takes 45 – 60 minutes to complete. A half or Full body about 1 ½ to 2 hours. I like to take sufficient time to make sure we can discuss all heath worries, even if you only would like the breasts looked at. You will be asked to fill out a couple of forms, which you can do before the appointment or during.

The procedure does not require contact with your body and does not involve radiation or invasive techniques.

Interpretation of your health study