Reducing Your Risk

Q: What can I do to reduce my risk of breast cancer?
A: On average, women who have a late first period and early first pregnancy have a lower risk. But those are things you can't control. Thinner women who exercise more and maybe eat a lower-fat diet may have a lower risk, but those effects are modest. The number one risk factor for breast cancer is age. There is also one drug, tamoxifen, that has been shown to lower the risk of breast cancer for women with high risk. The studies of this drug have been limited to women over age 35. Younger women would be unlikely to take it.

Q: What about reducing stress or taking vitamins? How much do these healthy habits help to lower our risk?
A: These healthy habits make you feel better, but they do not have a direct link to breast cancer. It's also a burden sometimes to tell people to reduce stress. People may have cancer because they have a gene that causes it. It's not because of stress. How you cope with your cancer may affect your outcome, but generally speaking, stress does not have a direct link to breast cancer. On the other hand, a low-fat diet with restricted calories has been linked to lower risks of many kinds of cancer, and everyone should strive to follow such a diet for a variety of reasons.

Q: Do you think the effort to raise awareness of breast cancer has gone too far? Are women becoming unnecessarily worried about breast cancer?
A: I don't know. I can't speak for all women. I think women should be aware of their health risks. We have had modest and continuing success with breast cancer, and this has to be in part because of the awareness and demystification of the disease. Plus, now women are no longer afraid to talk about it and seek treatment. These are all good things. The problem is not awareness. The problem is that women are still dying of breast cancer.