Five Things You Can Do Now To Reduce Your Risk of Breast Cancer

What can you do to reduce your risk of breast cancer?  These research-based tips can improve your breast health and make you feel better overall. An added benefit: you'll look better too.

1. Eat a plant-based diet of fruits, vegetables, seeds, nuts and whole grains.  Make sure you include five servings a day of fruits and vegetables. Your best best: cruciferous veggies such as cabbage, kale, broccoli, cauliflower, bok choy.  You can pack a lot of nutrition in a smoothie that takes about ten minutes to make.  Just blend a handful of kale, 1/8 a small cabbage, 2-3 carrots, 2-3 stalks of celery, and an apple, with some filtered water or all-fruit juice.  That makes enough for two, so you can encourage your partner's health.

2. Exercise at least a half an hour five times a week and do it consistently.  The more strenuous the better—running, race-walking, or boxing, for example—as long as your knees and heart and lungs can handle it.  Go for a mix of aerobic and resistance-training.  You don't need weights—sit ups and push ups will do.  And yoga is a great way to mix all-over toning with mental breaks. Try a yoga CD that takes 15 or 20 minutes first thing in the morning, before you even get out of the bedroom and get distracted.  Yoga classes are also a great way to socialize.  Walk outside as much as you can because it also reduces stress.  Amuse yourself by taking photos of your surroundings.

3. Lose weight.   Aim for the "normal" column of the body mass index.  A 5-foot, 5-inch woman who weighs 130 pounds has a BMI of 21.6, right in the middle of the healthy range.  If you eat healthy and exercise, you will naturally lose weight.  This is hard, I know. I lost 50 pounds nine years ago and it was the best thing I have ever done for myself.  I didn't dodge the cancer bullet, but I know my recovery was easier and faster because my body was geared up.  Start small and just keep at it.  Instead of going on a diet, change the way you eat so you pack your plate with plant-based foods and avoid unhealthy fats (in fried and processed foods, cookies, cakes, and other goodies.  Just switching to a smaller plate can help.

4. Limit alcohol to less than one drink a day.  Some experts say to cut it out completely.  Don't pitch the wine glasses, use them for all-fruit juice instead.  You can juice a watermelon, rind and all, put it in a fancy glass, and treat yourself.   Add some seltzer water to any old juice for extra sparkle.

5. Reduce toxins in your environment.  Add filters to your drinking water and your shower.  Use chemical-free cleaning supplies—you can do a lot with baking soda and vinegar.  Encourage your city and state officials to invest in low-pollution energy sources and to maintain clean water, free of agricultural and manufacturing run-off.  And, speaking of those drill bits, evidence is growing that dangerous fracking chemicals make their way into our groundwater—and even the best filter won't help keep them out.

Reduce Your Risk of Cancer: Eat Healthy, Stay Active, Limit Alcohol, Don't Smoke

Postmenopausal women whose behaviors were consistent with the Nutrition and Physical Activity Cancer Prevention Guidelines put forth by the American Cancer Society (ACS) had lower risk for cancer incidence, and cancer-related and cancer-unrelated death, according to a study published in Cancer Prevention Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.

“Postmenopausal women who have greater adherence to cancer prevention guidelines demonstrate a 17 percent lower risk for cancer incidence, 20 percent lower risk for cancer-related death, and 27 percent lower risk for death from all causes,” said Cynthia Thomson, Ph.D., R.D., professor of public health at the Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health at the University of Arizona in Tucson. “We found that the association was stronger for Asian, African-American, and Hispanic women, compared with non-Hispanic white women. It is possible that different ethnic groups may have differential disease course with varied response to environmental and/or behavioral exposures.

“The message is simple and clear: If you want to reduce your risk for cancer, even later in life, eat a healthy diet, be active daily, avoid or limit alcohol, and don’t smoke,” she said. “Our results support the ACS guidelines for cancer prevention. Certainly, efforts to identify complementary factors that can reduce risk further should be supported as well, because diet and activity alone do not account for the majority of risk,” Thomson added.

The ACS guidelines for cancer prevention include four behavior-associated measures: body weight, physical activity, diet, and alcohol consumption. Each component is assigned a numerical score in an effort to quantify diet and physical activity into a single indicator of cancer-preventive behavior. The guidelines are reviewed, updated, and published about every five years, explained Thomson.

Thomson and colleagues analyzed data available from 65,838 postmenopausal women age 50-79, enrolled in the Women’s Health Initiative (WHI) Observational Study between 1993 and 1998 at 40 clinical centers across the United States. This is the largest study of postmenopausal women in the United States, according to her.

Behaviors least consistent with the recommendations got a score of zero, and behaviors that met the criteria got scores of one or two depending on the level of adherence to the guidelines, and the scores were added to get the final score for an individual.

The researchers found that a majority of the women had final scores between three and six, with less than 1 percent resorting to behaviors that gave them a score of eight (the maximum score).

Participants were followed for an average of 8.3 years, and during this period, 8,632 cancers were diagnosed and 2,356 deaths due to cancer were recorded.

Compared with those who had the lowest scores (zero to two), those who had the highest scores (seven or eight) had 22 percent lower risk for breast cancer and 52 percent lower risk for colorectal cancer, in addition to having lower risk for all cancers combined, and for death related and unrelated to cancer. - NEWS RELEASE FROM THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR CANCER RESEARCH.

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