Breast can­cer is a fairly com­mon disease. In fact, some mem­bers of the medi­cal com­mu­nity go to the extent of sug­ges­ting that any woman would face the chance of deve­lo­ping breast can­cer if she lives long enough. Accor­ding to a Natio­nal Can­cer Ins­ti­tute breast can­cer infor­ma­tion report, one in every eight women (a whop­ping 12.5%!) in US is esti­ma­ted to deve­lop breast can­cer at some point in her life­time. Breast can­cer is undoub­tedly one of the most upset­ting diag­no­sis anyone can receive. Howe­ver, equip­ping your­self with the correct breast can­cer infor­ma­tion can lead to early detec­tion, prompt treat­ment and almost com­plete cure with little chance of recurrence.

There is a mul­ti­tude of breast can­cer infor­ma­tion avai­la­ble all around — most of it scien­ti­fi­cally well-​​established stan­dard infor­ma­tion, while some not so com­mon, little-​​known infor­ma­tion that could be help­ful any­way. Though there is no fool­proof for­mula that can gua­ran­tee not get­ting breast can­cer, this little-​​known breast can­cer infor­ma­tion can be uti­li­zed to mini­mize your chan­ces of deve­lo­ping breast can­cer while maxi­mi­zing your chan­ces of saving your life in case you do deve­lop breast cancer.

Then there is some com­mon breast can­cer misin­for­ma­tion among the gene­ral popu­la­tion. For exam­ple, did you know that breast can­cer is not just a women’s disease and, though rare, breast can­cer could occur in men, too, or that you don’t neces­sa­rily have to find a lump in your breast for being diag­no­sed with breast can­cer? So mam­mo­grams and ultra­sound are not com­plete scree­ning tools.

Another misin­for­ma­tion is that only 40+ or 50+ women can get breast can­cer. Though this may be sta­tis­ti­cally true about nor­mal breast can­cer, the extre­mely aggres­sive inflam­ma­tory type of breast can­cer can occur also among young women, some­ti­mes even teenagers.

The sur­vi­val rate, too, is found to be lower among youn­ger women, perhaps because, ini­tially, the breast can­cer symp­toms are not taken seriously due to their age factor.

Saving Your Life From Breast Can­cer Risk

Other than here­di­tary fac­tors and gene­tic pre­dis­po­si­tion, fac­tors like age, obe­sity, HRT, exces­sive use of birth con­trol pills, alcohol and anti­bio­tics, expo­sure to car­ci­no­gens via ciga­ret­tes, pes­ti­ci­des, cha­rred meat, etc., inc­rease your chan­ces of deve­lo­ping breast cancer.

Here are some gene­ral recom­men­da­tions gathe­red from various sour­ces of breast can­cer infor­ma­tion that you may follow to reduce your breast can­cer risk:

• Get about 10–15 minu­tes of expo­sure to full-​​spectrum sun­light. The UV B rays pre­sent in sun­light sti­mu­late the pro­duc­tion of vita­min D3 (toxic in high doses), a kind of ste­roid hor­mone that appa­rently boosts your immune sys­tem and inhi­bits the growth of can­cer cells.
• Sti­mu­late your lymph glands by gentle tap­ping for about one minute daily.
• Sti­mu­late your breasts by gentle circular-​​motion mas­sage star­ting from the nip­ple area, thrice a week, 3 minu­tes for each breast.
• Follow a low-​​fat (espe­cially, ani­mal fat), high-​​fiber diet con­sis­ting of whole grains and cereals, fresh fruits and vege­ta­bles, legu­mes and beans in place of meat.
• Get rid of obesity.
• Quit smo­king and alcoho­lic beverages.
• Mini­mize the use of dairy pro­ducts and ani­mal proteins.
• Exer­cise regu­larly to sweat out the toxins.
• Sup­ple­ment the diet with nia­cin and vita­min C.
• Eli­mi­nate stress from your life.

Even if you are gene­ti­cally pre­dis­po­sed to deve­lop breast can­cer, taking these pre­ven­tive mea­su­res might delay it or make it easier to deal with.