One in eight women will be diagnosed with breast cancer in her lifetime. Breast cancer treatment has improved significantly over the past twenty years, but diagnoses, especially among younger women, are on the rise.
Since 2012, breast cancer rates for all women have increased by 1%. However, for women under 50 the rates have increased by 1.4% since 2021. All ethnicities and races have been impacted.
While the root cause of the increased number of cases is unclear, experts propose limiting exposure to carcinogens in food and the environment and adopting an active lifestyle can help lower the risk of infection.
Here are a few tips from the Mayo Clinic on how to lower your risk of breast cancer:
- Avoid or limit alcoholic beverages
- Quit smoking
- Maintain a healthy weight
- Do at least 150 minutes of moderate aerobic exercise or at least 75 minutes of vigorous aerobic exercise a week
- Breastfeed, if possible
- Avoid hormone therapy after menopause
Also, be sure to conduct monthly self breast exams, and start getting mammograms at age 40. Early detection, when the cancer is still in a localized region, has a 99% 5-year relative survival rate.
If you have a family history of breast cancer, talk to your healthcare provider about genetic testing. If you missed our conversation with Andrea Downing and Valencia Robinson of The Light Collective, check it out here, and learn more about their journeys with breast cancer, the healthcare system, and the community they’ve built to support women.
