Breast Cancer Prevention Tips Preventing Malignant Breast Tumors
If you are an American and a woman, you are more prone to breast cancer and prevention steps for this type of tumor include changing your diet or the way you eat. There are risk factors for malignant breast tumors that you can’t totally stop such as aging and genetic makeup. But preventing the disease can still be done.
Prevention of tumors in your breasts is an important health decision because it is the second leading cause of death among women in the U.S. It can also happen even if you are a man.
What are prevention steps against benign or malignant breast cancer?
Avoid or limit alcoholic drinks.
Don’t drink regardless if it’s beer or wine because one of the dangers of alcohol is hormone-related types such as breast and colon cancer. If you can’t completely avoid alcohol, a tip on prevention is to limit your consumption to 1 drink a day.
Lose weight or maintain a normal weight.
There is a link between breast cancer and obesity. Try to stay within the normal weight range for your age and height.
Gaining a lot of weight when you are older or after menopause leads to increased production of estrogen. Too much of this hormone increases your risk for breast cancer and prevention steps include losing weight if you are overweight.
Be physically active.
Moving greatly helps in breast cancer prevention because one of the benefits of regular physical exercise is prevention of weight gain. Prevention exercises include walking, jogging and aerobics.
Being active is also one of the effective stress relief tips. It's important that you manage stress because being overstressed may make you sick.
To understand the link between too much stress and tumor development, click Cancer and Stress.
Watch what you eat.
If you prefer eating foods high in saturated fats, you will experience unhealthy weight gain. Invasive types of breast cancer are diagnosed more often among women who eat a mostly high-fat diet.
Consider discontinuing hormone therapy if you are on it. If you are being treated with hormones to manage menopausal symptoms, talk to your doctor and discuss other options that do not include estrogen.
And if you must be on hormone therapy, choose the lowest dosage as much as possible and make sure you will be on it only for a short time. This is a prevention step as estrogen stimulates the growth of normal as well as cancerous cells in your breasts.
Choose organic foods.
Why are organic foods better? Fruits and vegetables grown organically are free of pesticides. They are safer to eat.
Why is eating organic foods one of the breast cancer prevention steps? It’s because the molecular structures of some pesticides used in growing fruits and vegetables are very similar to the molecular structure of estrogen. The pesticide residues you take in from foods may attach to estrogen receptor sites in your body.
Use antibiotics with caution.
Experts have recently discovered a link between long-term antibiotic use and breast cancer. Prevention involves taking antibiotics only if it is absolutely necessary and upon the prescription of your doctor.
Important reminder: The link between tumors and antibiotics still needs further research. But it is alright to be vigilant and prevention is always better than cure.
A healthy immune system helps in prevention of tumor growth. Your immune system has killer cells that can block abnormal cells from growing out of control.
Examine your breasts regularly for any unusual changes such as lumps. Lumps are early signs of breast cancer. If you are 40 or older, have your breasts checked with a mammogram.
An annual mammogram and MRI scanning are recommended as prevention steps when you reach the age of 30 if you:
have a mutation in the BCRA1 or BCRA2 gene
have family history of breast cancer
have been treated with radiation therapy when you were between 10 to 30 years old.
These are major causes or risk factors of breast cancer and prevention against them is possible but difficult.
