5 Steps to Reduce Your Risk of Developing Breast Cancer

1. Avoid Oral Contraceptives and Hormone Replacement Therapy

In 2007, the World Health Organization declared that both oral contraceptives and hormone replacement therapy were Group I Carcinogens—in other words, they are known to cause cancer in humans. There is no longer any doubt that both of these drugs increase the risk for breast cancer. Stopping the use of them reduces that risk, not immediately, but slowly over time. So whenever possible, avoid the use of oral contraceptives and hormone replacement therapy.

2. Don’t Smoke

Smoking is just plain bad for you and it’s bad for your breasts, too. It increases the risk for breast cancer, especially in women who begin smoking in their teenage years. And if you have breast cancer and you continue to smoke, you increase your risk of dying. So, please, don’t smoke. Stop, if you do.

Desarrollan un tratamiento contra el cáncer sin efectos secundarios

La Universidad de Missouri ha desarrollado el primer tratamiento contra el cáncer sin efectos secundarios nocivos. Una innovadora forma de radioterapia.

Separate Fact from Fiction on World Cancer Day

What if everybody around the world stopped their busy lives for just a minute and thought about cancer? That’s exactly what the Union for International Cancer Control (UICC) hopes will happen today, World Cancer Day.

World Cancer Day — What It is

The UICC, a multinational non-profit organization founded in 1933, launched World Cancer Day at the First World Summit Against Cancer in 2000to raise awareness about the disease. The UICC’s ultimate goal is to eliminate cancers as life-threatening illnesses, but they have some work to do. Currently 7.6 million deaths (about 13 percent of all deaths) worldwide are caused by cancer or related complications.And as many as 30 percent of cancer deaths are due to preventable behaviors including smoking, obesity, and alcohol consumption. In 2010, theglobal cost of cancer — largely from productivity lost because of disability or premature death — was $290 billion. If we don’t change how we think about healthcare and sickness on an international level, that number is expected to swell to $458 billion by 2030 — with most of the bill falling on middle- and lower-income countries.

People with breast cancer family history to be offered preventative options

Half a million British women at high risk of breast cancer could be offered powerful drugs to prevent the disease.New guidelines from NICE - the National Institute of Health and Clinical Excellence say that the cancer drugs tamofixen or raloxifene could be offered on the NHS.  Dr Sarah Rawlings is Head of Policy at Breakthrough Breast Cancer and she gave her reaction to the guidelines.

The draft published today is really important and one of the recommendations made is for the first time in U.K. women with a family history with breast cancer may be offered drugs to help prevent breast cancer. This is a really historic step. And it’s really important for people with a family history who have a much higher risk of developing breast cancer have a range of options available to put that risk under control.

Folic acid 'cancer risk' fears played down by study

Worries that taking extra folic acid might increase the risk of cancer have been played down by a major study.

Following Canadian research linking the vitamin with a small rise in cancer, the study in the Lancet journal looked at data from 50,000 people.

It found no significant differences in those taking folic acid.

Taken in early pregnancy, it reduces the chances of certain birth defects and there have been calls to add it to food in the UK.

Many countries, including the US and Canada, South Africa and Australia, already add folate - also called folic acid or Vitamin B9 - to all flour.

It is proven to reduce the number of babies born with "neural tube defects" such as spina bifida.