Breast cancer is the second highest diagnosed cancer in women, second only to lung cancer. Treatments such as surgery, radiation and chemotherapy are often prescribed, and more women are beating breast cancer as cure rates rise every year. Aside from some risk factors such as family history and age, women and some men can take steps to preventing breast cancer. Subscribing to a healthy lifestyle and getting regular checkups can help with early detection and to reduce your chance of getting the disease.
Exercise
According to the National Cancer Institute, exercising four or more hours a week can decrease hormone levels, which impacts your overall breast cancer risk. Breast cancer risk is significantly reduced for premenopausal women of normal or low weight who exercise.
If you have never exercised, start slow with 30 minutes a day and work up to 60 minutes of physical activity. Try different exercises to keep working out interesting and incorporate strength training to build strong muscles and bones.
Maintain a Healthy Weight
The Mayo Clinic says that there's a direct correlation between obesity and breast cancer. Gaining weight later in life has an especially negative impact because scientists believe there is a link between estrogen production in fatty breast tissue and breast cancer.
Reduce your chances of breast cancer by eating a low-fat diet. The Women's Intervention Nutrition Study conducted a five-year-long study examining the impact of eating a low-fat diet on breast cancer. Researchers found the highest reduction rate of breast cancer from the group who ate a low-fat diet. Even though weight loss wasn't part of the study, scientists reported that the women on the low-fat diet lost an average of four pounds each.
Reduce Alcohol Consumption
A report in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute says that even low to moderate alcohol consumption significantly raises your risk of a variety of cancers, including breast.
A British study led by Naomi Allen, D.Phil. of the University of Oxford, studied the link between alcohol consumption and cancer incidence. The Million Women Study, which ran from 1996 to 2001, included more than a million middle-aged women in the United Kingdom.
Most participants consumed an average of one drink per day with only a few women who had more than three drinks per day. After seven years of tracking the women, 68,775 were diagnosed with cancer.
Researchers Michael Lauer, M.D., and Paul Sorlie, Ph.D., of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, in Bethesda, Maryland, agree with the data. "From a standpoint of cancer risk, the message of this report could not be clearer. There is no level of alcohol consumption that can be considered safe," Lauer and Sorlie reported.
Tags: breast cancer, low-fat diet, cancer risk, alcohol consumption, Cancer Institute, cancer Researchers
