Breast Cancer is the second-leading cause of cancer death among women, according to the National Breast Cancer Foundation.
However, the disease is treatable, as long as you catch it early, experts say. That’s why early detection is key.
“The earlier we can diagnose breast cancer the much, much better off you’ll be, said Alecia Jones, BSN, RN, OCN, CN-BN and breast nurse navigator at Holland Hospital. “Because so much money has been thrown at breast cancer, so much research has been done, we know a lot about breast cancer and how to treat it. If we catch it early, it’s very curable.”
Self-breast exams are a good place to start, even when young, said Dr. Amie Hop, general surgeon at Spectrum Health Zeeland Community Hospital.
“I’m a big believer in self-breast exams, and I think at a young age it’s important because, if nothing else, they make you breast aware, so that you know what your breast tissue normally feels like from a younger age,” Hop said. “Because that will change as you age, and you know what’s normal for you.”
She said if its caught at stages one or two, it’s about 95 percent curable. At stage three, that drops to about 72 percent, and stage four drops all the way to less than 25 percent.
“That’s why we say mammogram, mammogram, mammogram,” she said.
Regular mammograms are recommended by all health care professionals. A mammogram is an x-ray image of the breast, and getting a mammogram is recommended for women with normal risk factors ages 40 and older.
While early detection is key to fighting the disease, there are a few things health professionals agree can help prevent breast cancer altogether.
“As far as breast cancer prevention, there’s a handful of things we actually have control over,” Jones said. “Some things we don’t have control over that are risk factors are obviously being a woman, you’re at an increased risk compared to being a man, your age ... genetics ... those are all things that increase our risk.”
But there are a few things people can do to decrease their risk.
1. Maintain a healthy weight
“Being overweight or having a BMI or body mass index greater than 25 is not favorable,” Jones said. It’s just because the more fat we have, our fat cells have more estrogen, so if we have more fat cells, we have more estrogen, our breast cells have more exposure to estrogen over time.”
2. Eating healthy food
“Fruits, veggies, legumes, nuts, whole grains,” Jones said. “Again, lower fat decreases our exposure to estrogen over the long haul.”
3. Limiting alcohol
“Alcohol can increase levels of estrogen and it can also increase your risk by damaging the DNA of cells,” Jones said.
4. Don’t smoke
“The other big one is smoking,” Jones said. “There’s a definite link to the increased risk for breast cancer and smoking, especially in younger, premenopausal women, that smoking can increase their risk.”
Jones said it’s a common-sense approach to overall health, reducing risk for many diseases.
“So, you know, healthy eating, exercise, healthy weight, don’t drink too much and don’t smoke,” she said. “Basically, it’s all those things we all know we’re supposed to do anyway, right? To reduce your risk of lots of different cancers and diseases. ... We like to say it’s common sense, but we don’t all do it.”
“Things like breastfeeding — the longer you breastfeed, the more of a protective effect it has on our breasts.
6. Having children earlier
“Having children before the age of 30 is also something,” Jones said. “We don’t always have control over that, but that’s also found to decrease our risk.”
7. Limit hormone replacement therapy
“Hormone replacement therapy, if you can limit the amount and the length of time you take hormone replace when you’re going through menopause, the less the better,” Jones said. “More than like 3-5 years of hormone replacement. After about that 3-5 year mark, it can start to increase your risk for breast cancer.”
— Follow this reporter on Twitter @SentinelHeth.