4 Things to Cut Your Breast Cancer Risk
Breast cancer is the most common form of cancer in women, with more than 250,000 new cases diagnosed every year. You may not have had breast cancer yourself, but you probably know somebody who has had it. And men aren’t immune, either – though male breast cancer is uncommon, more than 2000 men are diagnosed with the condition annually. Breast cancer is scary, and sometimes people can’t avoid getting it, but there are a number of things you can do to decrease your risk.
Here’s how you can give yourself the best chance of avoiding breast cancer throughout your life.
Read: The importance of breast cancer awareness programs and breast cancer fund
Avoid drinking alcohol and smoking
Drinking excessive amounts of alcohol and smoking are two of the biggest risk factors for breast cancer, as well as numerous other types of cancer. If you smoke, quit as soon as you can – it’s not worth the health risk. It’s ideal to quit drinking alcohol as well, but if you don’t want to give it up completely, an occasional glass of wine is probably fine. Just limit your intake to one drink a day at most.
Exercise regularly
You already know that exercise is good for you – it keeps your body strong, lifts your mood, and reduces your risk of heart disease. Working out is also one of the best things you can do to avoid getting cancer. Just half an hour of exercise a day is enough to ward off many common types of cancer, including breast cancer. Even a gentle workout like walking will help protect you.
Maintain a healthy weight
You’ve heard it before, but it’s important enough to repeat: your weight has a major impact on your overall health, including your risk for developing cancer. If you are overweight or obese, your chance of getting breast cancer is much higher than it would be if you were at a healthy weight. This is because having excess fat tissue raises your levels of both estrogen and insulin, which are linked to breast cancer. Being overweight can also cause chronic inflammation throughout your body, which contributes to the development of cancer and other diseases.
Besides this, if you do happen to get breast cancer, it’s often easier to find a lump when you’re slim than when you’re overweight. Quicker detection results in better breast cancer prognostics – the five-year survival rate for breast cancer patients is 99% if the cancer is caught before it spreads from the breast. The bottom line: aim to maintain a body mass index (BMI) in the healthy range between 18.5 and 25. If you are currently overweight, losing even a little bit of weight will cut down on your cancer risk. A great way to start losing weight is by maintaining a healthy diet. There are also many supplements, such as Le-Vel Thrive, that aid in weight loss and provide many other health benefits.
Avoid hormone replacement therapy
Hormone replacement therapy used to be a common treatment for menopause symptoms. However, it’s now believed that taking hormone therapy can increase your risk of getting breast cancer, especially if you take it for more than three years. If you’re going through menopause, do your research and consider all your options carefully before you decide to try hormone replacement therapy. If you still think hormone therapy is the best option for you, talk to your doctor before you start treatment, and keep your dosage as low as possible.
The Takeaway
Breast cancer is influenced by lifestyle as well as genetics. While you can’t do anything about your genetics, you can be proactive in building healthy habits that will decrease your risk of getting breast cancer and other diseases. These tips aren’t a guarantee against breast cancer, but they will help increase your odds of living a healthy, cancer-free life.
