Research and studies have revealed that a woman’s risk for breast cancer is the culmination of a number of factors. The primary factors involve you as a woman getting older. Most breast cancer patients are women who are at least 50 years or older; however, there are several cases of younger women acquiring breast cancer in the current times too.
Dr. Paolo Boffetta is an esteemed Italian epidemiologist based in New York in the USA currently engaged in cancer research. He says some women acquire breast cancer without any known risk factor, so here this means that if you have a risk factor for breast cancer, this does not mean that you will get it as not all these factors have similar effects on your body. Again, some women have many risk factors; however, they do not get cancer in the breast. To know more about your own body and the risk factors you are prone to, you should talk to your doctor, schedule a screening to determine whether you have breast cancer or not, and discuss how you can effectively reduce your risk factors.
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How can you change these risk factors?
He says that there are some risk factors like growing old, dense breasts, family history of breast cancer, etc. cannot be changed. However, there are some risk factors you can change, and they have been listed below-
- Not exercising- Women who do not exercise and are physically inactive face higher risks of breast cancer.
- Gaining weight or obesity after menopause- Older women who are obese or gain weight after menopause are more prone to get breast cancer than women of normal weight for their age.
- Consuming hormones- There are some types of hormone replacement therapy (they include progesterone and estrogen) during menopause, raising the risks for breast cancer taken for over five years. There are some oral contraceptives or birth control pills that increase the risks of breast cancer.
- History of reproduction- If you have your first pregnancy after 30 years or have not been breastfed or never had a full-term pregnancy, you are more prone to breast cancer.
- Alcohol- Drinking alcohol regularly increases your chances of breast cancer, and if you smoke with a drink, the risks for breast cancer doubles.
As pointed by Dr. Paolo Boffetta, other factors like being exposed to harmful chemicals and working for prolonged periods in night shifts increase your chances of getting breast cancer greatly. When you work at night, several hormonal changes in the body make you vulnerable to breast cancer. He says that if your family history depicts breast cancer and you have inherited the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes, you have a big chance of getting not only breast cancer buy ovarian cancer too. When it comes to the above risk factors,
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it makes sense to be aware of them so that you can change the ones possible and protect yourself from the onslaught of breast cancer in the future!
