Starting the conversation about breast cancer can be difficult, but it’s important for women to understand the disease. The more you know about breast cancer, the more you can do to protect yourself from it. Here are a few shareable facts to help promote breast cancer awareness. Use this information about breast cancer on social media or in your conversations with the women in your life.
Knowledge is power. Help increase breast cancer awareness by sharing this information with the women you know. Click To TweetBreast cancer risk is not the same for every woman.
Most women don’t develop breast cancer, but breast cancer is common; it is the most common cancer in American women after skin cancers.
Women have a 13% lifetime risk for developing the disease. However, this percentage does not reflect a woman’s personal risk for breast cancer. Breast cancer risk also changes throughout a woman’s life.
Learning the difference between absolute risk and relative risk for breast cancer can help you understand your personal risk for the disease.
You can be the first in your family to develop breast cancer.
Women with a family history of breast cancer are at an increased risk for developing the disease. However, most breast cancer cases are not inherited. Approximately five to ten percent of women with breast cancer have a hereditary form of breast cancer.
You can develop breast cancer even if you do not have a family history of breast cancer.
Still, learning your family health history can help you and the women in your family stay ahead of breast cancer. There may be some things in your personal history that increase your risk as well. The Breast Center offers risk assessment and genetic testing for breast cancer, when appropriate for women with a personal or family health history that suggests increased risk. If you are at higher risk, you may need to have additional tests to find cancer at the earliest stage possible.
You can reduce your risk for breast cancer.
There are several breast cancer risk factors that are beyond your control; being a woman and getting older are the two biggest risk factors for breast cancer.
While you can’t prevent breast cancer, there are things that you can do to lower your risk. Eating a nutritious, plant-rich diet, maintaining a healthy weight, getting regular exercise, not smoking, and limiting alcohol consumption have all been shown to lower your risk for breast cancer.
You can have breast cancer without knowing.
Breast cancer doesn’t always cause noticeable signs or symptoms. This is one of the reasons that regular breast cancer screening is so important.
Screening helps find cancers that are too small to be detected. The sooner a cancer is diagnosed, the easier it is to treat.
Mammograms save lives
Mammography reduces the rate of death from breast cancer. The Breast Center recommends annual screening mammograms for women at average risk starting at age 40.
Routine screening is a simple way to be proactive about breast health. Contact the breast health specialists at The Breast Center to learn more about breast cancer screening, risk assessment, and prevention.