Breast Cancer Risk

All women are at risk for getting breast cancer. As you get older, your risk increases. Assuming you live to age 90, your risk of getting breast cancer over your lifetime is about 12%. That might sound scary, because it means that an average of about 1 out of every 7 women will get breast cancer over a 90-year life span.


Lowering Breast Cancer Risk

A new study finds that breastfeeding significantly reduces the incidence of breast cancer among premenopausal women who have a family history of breast cancer, a factor that places them at especially high risk for the disease.

According to the American Cancer Society, women who have one first-degree relative (mother, daughter, sister) with breast cancer have about a twofold increased risk of getting the disease. The increased risk rises to fivefold for women who have two first-degree relatives with breast cancer.

The study evaluated information from 60,075 women who had participated in the second Harvard Nurses’ Health Study. Tamoxifen, which has been used for about thirty years to treat breast cancer and for about ten years as a preventive approach for women at high risk, is associated with several serious side effects, including blood clots, stroke, uterine cancer, and cataracts. For women, breastfeeding has been associated with a reduced risk of developing ovarian cancer, osteoporosis, high blood pressure, and heart disease. Breastfed infants generally have a lower risk of developing common infant problems, including diarrhea, bacterial meningitis, and ear infections.

The study’s researchers noted several curious findings from the study. One was that the reduction in breast cancer risk did not change among women who had breast-fed exclusively or for longer periods of time. Clearly there are many unanswered questions about the association between breastfeeding and breast cancer risk, and further research is needed.

The other research in China found The study, of more than 2,000 Chinese women, found that the more fresh and dried mushrooms the women ate, the lower was their breast cancer risk. The women who ate the most fresh mushrooms — 10 grams or more per day — were about two thirds less likely to develop breast cancer than non-consumers of mushrooms. Meanwhile, women who ate 4 grams or more of dried mushrooms per day had half the cancer risk of non-consumers.

Please also read the new researcher founding about a way to stop tumors growing in a breast cancer. For read that article please click here

»»  Read More

A Way to Stop Tumors Growing and Spreading in a Breast Cancer

Breast cancer is one of the most common cancers. Around 45.500 British women are diagnosed with breast cancer; around two thirds are o estrogen positive. This means the cancer cells rely on it to grow and the disease kills 12.000 British women every year

Now the British scientists are close to a 'potential cure' for most breast cancer cases. They say the new technique could be used to produce a drug to tackle the disease in as little as two years. They have previously focused on how to prevent tumors from forming, but the new research has found key molecules called microRNAs which the cancer manipulates to spread around the body.

Breast cancer cells 'switch off' these molecules, allowing the cancer to spread unchecked to other parts of the body. This spread is responsible for 90 per cent of deaths from breast cancer and the team which made the breakthrough is working on a drug to stop this fatal process.
'This is a potential cure for breast cancer. It helps us understand the way breast cancer cells grow and divide. If we understand this, we understand how to stop it.' Said Dr justin Stebbing, One of the scientists.

The researchers from Imperial College and James Watson Cold Spring Harbor Laboratories in New York found the role of the female hormone oestrogen in the spread of cancer was key.
The tiny microRNA molecules control o estrogen activity but in breast cancer cells they are switched off, allowing o estrogen to fuel the cancer spread. Thus stopping this 'switching off ' process permanently could halt the cancer altogether, the scientists claim.

Dr Stebbing said that is the reason women on so-called wonder drugs such as Tamoxifen, which blocks o estrogen, see impressive results at first - but around half of them relapse.The way to cure breast cancer or any cancer is by fundamental understanding of what turns cells on and off, stopping the way tumors grow. We can use these microRNAs as a new treatment and make them do what current drugs don't do. This only applies in o estrogen positive breast cancer but this could save millions of lives.

Dr Laura Bell of Cancer Research UK said: 'This may prove useful in future drug development that aims to treat diseases where osetrogen is thought to play a role. The researchers used it to zap breast tumours in mice and will now test it on prostate, skin and bowel cancers.
Dr Alexis Willett of Breakthrough Breast Cancer welcomed the initial findings but said it was too early to say what clinical benefits it could bring. She said: 'Oestrogen positive breast cancers are the most common form of the disease and this suggests that microRNAs could be the key to treating this type of breast cancer.

Source: Dailymail

Please read also the article Vegies and Fruits as Breast Cancer Alternative Treatment

»»  Read More