10 Ways to Lower Your Risk of Breast Cancer
Most of the news we hear about breast cancer deals with addressing the disease after it's already been diagnosed. The best treatment for any disease, is through prevention. Here are 10 ways to lower your breast cancer risk.
1. Exercise and be consistant about it. Moderate physical activity, like brisk walking, 3 times a week can reduce a young woman's risk of developing breast cancer by 33%, and the risk of breast cancer after menopause by 26%.
2. If you smoke, quit now. The sooner, the better.
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Cancer Death Rate Declining
Some good news in the battle against cancer: recent findings in a report published in the latest issue of Cancer shows cancer death rates dropped steadily on average 2.1 percent per year from 2002 through 2004, nearly twice the annual decrease of 1.1 percent per year from 1993 through 2002.
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African American Women and Breast Cancer
“I was afraid that I wouldn’t be able to see my children grow up and my grandchild grow, you get this really scary feeling inside,” says Rosamond Stallings. When 45 year old Rosamond Stallings was diagnosed with breast cancer 2 years ago, doctors urged her to immediately have a mastectomy. “They found like six malignant tumors,” says Rosamond.
Recent studies have shown that 30 percent or more of breast cancer patients fail to receive complete treatment, and that African American women are as much as 10 percent less likely than white women to receive optimal therapy. But now, supported by a $10 million grant from the Department of Defense, a study, led by a team of doctors at Columbia University Medical Center, will look at possible reasons for the disparity.
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BRCA Breast Cancer Genes
Women who have BRCA breast cancer genetic mutations are just as likely to survive as other women who get breast cancer, according to a new study published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Women with BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes are more likely to get breast cancer. It was also widely believed that those with hereditary breast cancer from BRCA1 mutations had worse outcomes. This new study, tracked two groups of women with breast cancer in Israel, one with the inherited BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations, and the other without. The researchers found no significant difference in death rates between the two groups. Between 5 and 10 percent of all breast cancers are hereditary and are more likely to occur with women from certain ethnic backgrounds like people of Ashkenazi (central or eastern European) Jewish heritage [one reason why the study was done in Israel].
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Breast Cancer Treatment
There is important research that will directly affect one out of every four women diagnosed with breast cancer. Herceptin, a treatment used to boost the benefits of chemotherapy and surgery has been shown to be highly effective, and experts are saying it’s a must-use.
Now, two new studies say herceptin can reduce the risk of cancer recurrence and the overall risk of death.
Three years ago, when Wendy Funk she was only 35, she thought her life was over. Diagnosed with breast cancer at the age of 32, her cancer had later spread. “When I had the breast cancer metastasis, they had given me six months to live,” says Wendy.
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BREAST CANCER GENE TESTING
With all the information on breast cancer now, many women are being more vigilant about being screened and followed for breast cancer. But now, a new government panel says doing high tech genetic testing should be reserved for only a small handful of women.
It’s the most aggressive form of breast cancer testing: a screen for the two genes identified with most cases of inherited breast cancer. But the tests are only helpful if you are at the highest risk, and then, only if you intend to do something about the results if they are indeed positive, as in Diane green’s case. She knew in her twenties and thirties there was something brewing in her family
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BREAST CANCER RECURRENCE MARKER
Researchers have discovered how to identify women with breast cancer who are at risk for having the cancer spread.
This is quite a significant step, because currently, there’s no reliable way to see what cancers will spread and what won’t, and that means it’s hard to say which patients should be treated more aggressively and which can be treated less aggressively
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