What puts me at risk
for breast cancer?
In most individual cases the exact cause of
cancer is unknown.
REMEMBER: This short assessment will help you
determine if you have major risk factors for breast cancer.
It is not a complete assessment of all risks.
It is likely that each case represents a combination
of several factors. Although they are not causes per se, a number
of factors can influence your personal risk for breast cancer.
A risk factor includes anything that increases
your chance of developing breast cancer.
There are various factors that have an impact
on your personal risk.
These factors include:
- A family history of breast cancer, especially in your
mother, sister(s), or daughter(s)
- Never having borne a child
- Having your first child after age 30
- First menstrual period at an early age
- A history of benign breast disease that required biopsies
- Other breast conditions: lobular carcinoma in situ (LCIS)
or atypical hyperplasia
Lifestyle risk factors for breast cancer
Other factors may also increase your risk for
breast cancer and are NOT accounted for by
the 5 Minutes for Life tool. These risk factors are difficult
to measure and therefore their impact is impossible to gauge.
These factors can, however, have a serious
impact on your breast cancer risk.
We do have the power to control these and in
doing so dramatically reduce our risk for breast cancer.
A risk factor includes anything that increases
your chance of developing breast cancer. These include:
- Smoking
Scientists have conclusively proved the link between smoking
and cancer. It is not good enough to reduce your intake
of cigarettes. You need to stop smoking completely to reduce
your risk for cancer.
- Alcohol
To drink more than 1 unit of alcohol per day increases your
risk for chronic disease. The recommendation is not to exceed
more than a glass of wine or a tot of spirits per night.
Binge drinking can also have dire medical consequences.
- Being overweight/High fat diet
Excess fat makes hormonally dependant cancers grow. This
is achieved because fat cells make estrogen.
- Sedentary lifestyle (no exercise)
Exercise has proven benefit for lowering ones risk for chronic
disease
- Stress
Stress has long been proposed as an initiator for many cancers.
All cancers require a stressor to initiate the process of
cancer. This effect, because difficult to quantify, is often
underestimated in medical literature.
For more information,
please
click here to go the Risk Factors section on the PinkLink
website.
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