5 Simple Things That Could Cut Your Breast Cancer Risk

Check out these five tips for reducing your breast cancer risk.

More from Health.com:
25 Breast Cancer Myths Busted
10 Celebrities Who Battled Breast Cancer
How to Help a Loved One Cope With Breast Cancer

1. Limit yourself to two or three alcoholic drinks a week

Alcohol, consumed even in small amounts, is believed to increase the risk of breast cancer. Most doctors recommend cutting back on wine, beer, and hard liquor.

A recent study showed the link between drinking and breast cancer was especially strong in the 70 percent of tumors known as hormone-sensitive.

2. Exercise at least three times a week (more often is even better)

And when you do exercise, work to keep your heart rate above its baseline level for a minimum of 20 continuous minutes. Long walks are nice too, but it's the more vigorous exercise (expect to sweat!) that really helps your heart and cuts your cancer risk.

3. Maintain your body weight, or lose weight if you're overweight

Research shows that being overweight or obese (especially if you're past menopause) increases your risk, especially if you put on the weight as an adult. And a study released in March 2008 by researchers at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston showed that obese and overweight women also had lower breast cancer survival rates and a greater chance of more aggressive disease than average-weight or underweight women.

4. Do a monthly breast self-exam

Be sure to get proper instruction from your doctor and have your technique reviewed regularly. You might catch a lump before a mammogram does, and it's a good idea to follow changes in your body.

5. Have a mammogram once a year after 40

Catching a tumor early boosts the chance of survival significantly: The five-year survival rate can be as high as 98 percent for the earliest stage localized disease, but hovers around 27 percent for distant-stage, or metastatic, disease.

Comments

[Chuck Bluestein]

01:04 PM on 10/30/2011

When it comes to simple things, it is very easy for someone to take a vitamin D supplement. In 2007 Time Magazine chose vitamin D as one of the top 10 medical breakthroughs of the year! In December 2010 the RDA of vitamin D was tripled. In the last 3 years 6 MDs wrote 6 books on vitamin D.

Dr Oz has a video explaining how vitamin D prevents breast, colon and uterine cancer. Webmd.com has an article saying that women with breast cancer should take vitamin D. Christiane Northrup M.D. has written best selling books on women's health. She has an article on Oprah's website about vitamin D preventing breast cancer. http://bit.ly/nwbS8X She says on it:

"There's a paradigm shift going on in medicine as new research reveals a far greater role for vitamin D.

In addition to protecting the bones and boosting the immune system, studies show that Vitamin D helps prevent certain cancers, including breast, ovarian, prostate and colorectal. Exciting NEW research shows that, in the United States alone, thousands of new cases of breast cancer could be prevented every year if more women had optimal levels of vitamin D!

[megwolff]

02:58 PM on 10/30/2011

Chuck, Thanks for mentioning this!

[mamadeus]

04:08 AM on 10/31/2011

I cannot say enough about Vit. D. It also helps rebuild joints and bones. Love this vitamin!

[Garry Klouzal]

03:57 PM on 10/28/2011

Three of those suggestions are specifically for women I see. The other two I can't tell and the title of the article implies it's for men and women both. Is it?

[jjkrjw0]

11:10 AM on 10/28/2011

Finaly, a succinct to-the-point article from Huff Post. They should all be no longer than this. I'm tired of articles that ramble on page after page or force me to watch a video or slideshow.

[megwolff]

02:56 PM on 10/30/2011

You don't like the videos and slide shows? Funny I love those features.

[wordssmithrv]

04:28 AM on 10/28/2011

6. Insist on MRI/CT scanned mammograms to avoid compression of breasts that could possibly cause tissue damage/breakdown that might contribute to cancer invasion.

[zphemack]

01:49 AM on 10/28/2011

Another BIG factor, that the "main stream" media avoids like the plague is the "A-word"...Yes, ladies, those that have abortions are more likely to have breast cancer.. [Look it up: Dr. Joel Brind (an endocrinologist) is a researcher for the National Cancer Institute is not hiding the facts.]

[hotincleveland]

09:50 PM on 10/27/2011

It's very misleading to present self-exam and mammograms as "preventative" measures. They can't prevent breast cancer, they can only find what's already there. And early detection doesn't matter nearly as much as the type of cancer you get. Mammograms, especially, often find lazy, slow-growing cancers that aren't all that dangerous. That's why the "five-year survival rate" for cancers found that way is so high. Sadly, it's not as high for cancers found just as early with a nastier, faster-growing disposition that are often treated successfully but then come back. What we have now isn't enough--we need real prevention, and real cure for those already diagnosed.

[Chuck Bluestein]

02:03 PM on 10/30/2011

You are correct. Also like any shot of radiation it can contribute to you getting breast cancer. Also you are right about the doctors treating it successfully and then it coming back worse. John Kerry's wife, Elizabeth, had her cancer cured and then it came back worse. Also some of the information is not clear but Steve Jobs stated that his pancreatic cancer was cured in 2004. This is what he recently died of.

The author of Anticancer is an MD who got cancer. The doctors cured it and it came back later. So he then learned about all these lifestyle changes and made them. Then after being free of cancer for 15 years, he wrote the book. Then a couple of years later he wrote a new edition that includes the latest about vitamin D and other things. He became a vegetarian to avoid getting cancer again and the book explains why. Bill Clinton became a vegan but that was to save his heart (cardiovascular health).

[yankhadenuf]

07:41 PM on 10/27/2011

Eliminate aluminum deodorants/antiperspirants, and don't use hormone replacements! Why is Huffpo leaving out the best advice against corporate causes of breast cancer? hmmm

[hotincleveland]

10:51 PM on 10/27/2011

They're leaving out this "best advice" because deodorants and antiperspirants don't cause breast cancer. Hormone replacements are another story. Then again, I got breast cancer and I never took so much as a birth-control pill, much less hormone replacement.

[yankhadenuf]

07:33 PM on 10/28/2011

You should read the ingredients in your deodorants and antiperspirants, ALUMINUM and PARABENS in deodorants and antiperspirants do cause breast cancer:

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2011/10/17/aluminum-containing-antiperspirants-contribute-breast-cancer.aspx

[aearthling59]

07:19 PM on 10/27/2011

Six years after a landmark federal study established that hormone-replacement therapy (HRT) increases the risk of breast cancer in postmenopausal women, researchers are still trying to tease out exactly how the hormones interfere with women's health. The assumption has always been that stopping hormone therapy would lead to a corresponding drop in breast-cancer risk, but now newly published data from the original trial — the multiyear Women's Health Initiative involving tens of thousands of women — suggest that the benefit occurs much more immediately than previously thought.

The finding is a contentious one. The authors of the new paper, which appears in the Feb. 5 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, found that the rate of breast cancer in postmenopausal women fell just two years after they stopped hormone therapy and continued to decline yearly.

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1877119,00.html#ixzz1c1kd5Ia3

[bbh907]

03:12 PM on 10/27/2011

They left out Don't Use Hormone Replacements.Very high cause of breast cancer and/ or fibroid tumors.

[charleyvldm9]

03:04 PM on 10/27/2011

You left out the Main one --Breast Feeding.the original reason for having Breasts.

[Jacquelyn Edmonds]

02:26 PM on 10/27/2011

I am a 3 time cancer survivor who tested positive for the BRCA 1 gene and let me tell you I did all those things and nothing prevented ME from suffering. I breast fed both children ate right exercised didn't drink you name it. I STILL GOT IT TWICE AND HAD MY OVARIES AND EVERYTHING ELSE REMOVED. 25 years of this. No holds barred now.

[prezbuff]

01:57 PM on 10/27/2011

You left out one vitally important way to protect yourself and your children from breast cancer.. Breastfeeding! I have reduced my risk by almost 69% just by breastfeeding. If you are breastfed, your risk of getting breast cancer is reduced.

[gin11153]

02:10 PM on 10/27/2011

Didn't work for me. Breastfed all 4 kids for 6-12 months each and I still got breast cancer despite no risk factors

[kat4show]

11:25 AM on 10/28/2011

Exactly it's all garbage. They still have no clue as to what causes the many "types" of breast cancer. What they tell you is that one thing might cause one type, one thing another. Face it they're clueless. There are many women who follow all the "recommendations" no history of BC and still get BC.

Secondly how do you prove a negative. e.g. someone WON'T get A if they do B. There are too many thousands of variables esp. now on this polluted planet.

[Mary Aspinwall]

01:54 PM on 10/27/2011

Think twice before you have a mammogram. http://www.pulsetoday.co.uk/newsarticle-content/-/article_display_list/12946586/nhs-breast-cancer-screening-programme-under-review
Think twice before using any type of synthetic or bio identical hormones
http://www.homeopathyworld.com/blog/infertility-treatments-and-cancer/
Juice organic mostly green vegetables with a little fruit every day.

[gin11153]

02:09 PM on 10/27/2011

Disagree on the mammogram. While they do miss about 20% of tumors due to dense breast tissue, it's the best tool we have right now and the digital machines are very low in radiation, less than going on an airplane trip for an hour.

[savantpm]

01:30 PM on 10/27/2011

DON'T TAKE HORMONES FOR BIRTH CONTROL OR MENOPAUSE!!!! Don't believe me? LOOK at the breast cancer statistics since the inception of the birth control pill in 1960! My best friend died of breast cancer in 1995. She was a devout Catholic who never took birth control pills, however, she entered menopause with uncomfortable symptoms, and agreed to take 'low-dose' hormones to relieve her symptoms. She developed a cancerous breast tumor the size of a grapefruuit within six months!

[gin11153]

02:08 PM on 10/27/2011

agreed! I took birth control for many years in my 20's and 30's before having a tubal ligation. Then I took mini half doses of estrogen and progesterone for 14 months before discovering my pea sized tumor doing breast self exam in 2004. Thank goodness I caught it early because 2 mammograms 8 months apart missed it, including the same day I was diagnosed by ultrasound and immediate core needle biopsy. Had a lumpectomy and 8 weeks of radiation.

[jabber60]

01:09 PM on 10/27/2011

I AM HAPPY TO SAY I GO TO THE GOOD SAMARITAN LAB IN PALMYRA PA IT IS RIGHT NEXT DOOR TO MY DR OFFICE, AND THE GIRLS ARE JUST GREAT THERE! IT IS SOMETHING EVERY WOMAN NEEDS TO DO! THINK PINK AND TAKE CARE OF YOUR BODY YOU ONLY GET ONE OF THEM!!!!!!!