Balanced Tips for Breast Cancer Prevention

Balanced Tips for Breast Cancer Prevention

Need my help? Ask me now! Need my help? Ask me now! 
 It used to be that the cancer statistics measured that one in ten American women over the course of their lives, would come face-to-face with breast cancer. Those were the good times. Today, one in nine women in the country faces the same fate. Let's look at some of the top pointers women get for breast cancer prevention.

Obesity is the gift that keeps on taking; there is no end to the risks there are to being a little overweight. Once a woman hits menopause, it does become a little extra difficult to keep the weight down; and this is about the time that you gain an additional 50% risk of cancer. Studies say that the number of unnecessary pounds you put on happen to be directly proportional to where you stand on the risk charts. So your first rule of breast cancer prevention should be, keeping those pounds down.

Here is another angle to the weight issue; the more you visit the gym, and the more you work up a sweat on truly vigorous exercises (within reason of course), the better you get at taking advantage of the 20% lower risk that comes your way for getting great cardiovascular health. Quiet exercise, walking or gardening apparently don't do it for your circulation.

Alcohol always puts you at a higher risk of getting breast cancer. The longer you indulge and the more you drink, the higher you the risk you place yourself at. They may say that a little red wine does help your heart; but that will also drive up your risk of breast cancer by a third. If you absolutely have to drink a bit, make sure that you take good folic acid supplements. They help counter the effects of alcohol. But basically, you get excellent breast cancer prevention results with going with alcohol abstinence.

For lots of women, menopause comes with all kinds of attendant problems - a loss of happiness and motivation, a loss of libido, hot flashes, and sometimes depression. Hormone replacement therapy is the way to go for lots of women; but it does bring a very small increase to your risk of breast cancer. If you have a family history of breast cancer, hormone therapy of a certain kind is really not recommended. Estrogen-only hormone therapy is considered generally safe. If you have progesterone in addition to estrogen in your hormone cocktail, that might put you at an additional risk. The risk however is so small, that for most women, this need not really feature on their breast cancer prevention agenda.

But there is a substitute, so to speak, for artificial hormones - soy. Study after study has proven that slowly in many women, soy somehow substitutes for estrogen. And as an added benefit, it has great breast cancer prevention qualities too. A daily dose of soy milk, tofu or soy bread, will give you the same advantage that Chinese women have had for centuries. Chinese cuisine of course, makes a lot of use of soy too.