ខ្មែរ
English
When young, budding breasts reminded us girls that we’re women in training. We love them; we hate them. We want them to grow bigger and we wonder why this one is smaller/bigger/rounder/flatter than the other and we wonder also why men are staring at them and when they don’t, we wonder why.
Whatever and however, breasts are part of our female identity, and that is perhaps why, for most of us, the sheer mention of the words ‘Breast Cancer’ can make many of us worry; afraid. In fact we’re more afraid of it than we are of heart disease, which is 10 times more likely tokill us.
Anyway, the good news is, those 2 words no longer carry the death sentence. Today, nearly everyone knows someone touched by the disease. It is bad news of course, but there is a lot of good news about this dreaded disease these days. Treatments keep getting better, and best of all, we know more than ever about ways to prevent the disease.
Here are a few simple steps that can help lower the risk of breast cancer. Although not every one of them applies to every woman, together, they will make a difference.
1) Find out how dense you are
Check whether you have dense breasts. When a woman has more tissue than fat in her breasts, which is common in younger women, it can make cancer harder to detect on a mammogram. Both tumours and breast tissues show up white, while fats look dark. What’s more alarming is, having dense breasts actually increases the risk of cancer by up to 6 times. Experts are not sure why since there is no standardization for measurement of breast density, but the numbers show. So, if yours are firm and dense, you may want to self-examine them more often.
2) Keep Weight in Check
Maintaining a healthy weight is an important factor; a goal for everyone and not just us women. Being overweight can increase the risk of many different types of cancer; breast cancer included.
3) Be Physically Active
We talked about how good exercise does to our well-being, but just how important exercise really is in cancer prevention, is something few women thought about. Women who are physically active for at least 30 minutes a day have a much lower risk of breast cancer. Besides, regular exercise is also one of the better ways to help keep weight in check.
4) Eat Your Fruits & Vegetables
A healthy diet can definitely help lower the risk of breast cancer. Choose fruits and vegetables over meat or other processed food. Make sure that half your plate at meal time is covered by fruits and vegetables. They say to do everything in moderation, but feeding our bodies with phytonutrient far outweighs chowing down most any other stuffs.
5) Avoid Alcohol –How Much Is Too Much
To avoid some women tearing the page off, we are just going to say this bit about alcohol and its possible detriment to cancer prevention efforts.
While moderate drinking may be good for the heart in older adults, even low levels of alcohol intake can increase the risk of breast cancer. If you don’t drink, don’t start. If you’ve been drinkingleisurely, here’s a good reason to stop and if you are habitually downing the substance, you should cut down or quit totally if you seriously wish to prevent from cancer.
6) Don’t Smoke
Everybody knows how unhealthy smoking is. On top of lowering quality of life and increasing the risk of heart disease, stroke, and at least 15 known cancers, including breast cancer, it also causes smelly breath, bad teeth, and wrinkles. Now thatshould be sufficient motivation to stay smoke-free or work to achieve a smoke-free environment as well.
7) Breastfeed, If Possible
We know that breastfeeding can lower breast cancer risk, especially if you breastfeed for longer than 1 year. This is because making milk limits breast cells’ ability to act abnormally and most women have fewer menstrual cycles when they’re breastfeeding, which means lower estrogen levels plus many women tend to eat more nutritious food and make healthier lifestyle choices (avoiding alcohol and not smoking) while they’re breastfeeding.
8) Avoid Birth Control Pills
The debate about birth control pills and breast cancer is not new. Researchers have been looking at the issue for many years, but the results have been mixed. However, a review of 54 studies in 1996 found that women have a slightly higher risk of breast cancer while they’re taking birth control pills that contain both estrogen and progestin and during the 10 years after they stop taking the pills. Progestin-only pills also increased risk, although not as much.
So if you’re very concerned about breast cancer, avoiding birth control pills is one option to lower risk.
9) Avoid Post-Menopausal Hormones
Post-menopausal hormones shouldnot be taken long term to prevent chronic diseases, like osteoporosis and heart disease. Studies show they have a mixed effect on health, increasing the risk of some diseases and lowering the risk of others, and both estrogenonly hormones and estrogen-plus-progestin hormones increase the risk of breast cancer. If women do take post-menopausal hormones, it should be for the shortest time possible. Consult your doctor.
10) Don’t Forget Screening
Despite some controversy, studies show that breast cancer screening with mammography saves lives. It doesn’t help prevent cancer, but it can help find cancer early when it’s most treatable.
