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Marissa Gale
Jennifer Gammage
English 102-110
March 3, 2014
Is There A Way to Prevent Breast Cancer?
Abstract
Breast cancer is one of the most common cancer worldwide. Some women have the
DNA already encoded saying they most likely will have the cancer. A lot of women however do
not and do not realize they can still get breast cancer. Most of the time women do not realize
they can help prevent breast cancer with making their lives healthier. There are preventions for
breast cancer that are not harmful, do not need doctors help in most cases, and a women can
change her risks of getting breast cancer by changing her daily life in a small way. A lot of
women need to realize they can help themselves by becoming a better and healthier women.
Because breast cancer is so common, more women should become more aware, and have a better
understanding of this disease. Throughout my research I found that there are simple steps into
helping prevent breast cancer and being able to have a better life.
Breast cancer ribbon
Introduction
Breast cancer is the most common cancer among women worldwide. There are many reasons
why a woman (or man) could have this mutation happen to their cells. I really wanted to look at
the way of preventing this cancer and if there are ways woman can do to lessen the chance of
developing the cancer. I wanted to focus more on the prevention when a woman does not have
the genetic mutation. Sometimes in the DNA there is the mutation already written and when a
women knows that she already takes precaution and understands her chances. I wanted to find
out a prevention or preventions for women in daily lives who do not have it written in her DNA.
Because this cancer is so common and so dangerous women all over should know about this, and
why they should be cautious. Especially women who do not have the genetic mutation handed
down from generation to generation, they find it late and sometime it is fatal. If there are
preventions for this, simple things a woman can do in her daily life, imagine how many more
woman could be helped, or saved from this cancer.
Methods
For all my sources I had an easy time finding them. For the websites I already knew about Mayo
Clinic, I use that one often for finding out any information I want about the body. For the other
website I search the word breast cancer, and found the website that is devoted just to breast
cancer and everything a person would ever want to know about.
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For the academic sources I went to the UNM library data base and searched the words
breast cancer and prevention. I came up with a good amount of sources and they were easy to
read and understand for the most part.
Findings
What exactly is the breast?
The breast is an apocrine gland located in the anterior chest wall. It is composed of a dense fibrous tissue
covered by skin and contains bundles of smooth muscle fibers, which assist with milk expression. The breast
consists of 15 to 20 lobules, which drain secretion into a ductal system that converges and opens into the nipple.
The dense fibrous tissue between the breast lobules is called interlobular stoma, which is not responsive to hormones
(Jacobs, 4). (Breast picture)
The breast tissues are mostly fat, and differ in size on how much fat a women has in her body
and how her body stores it. Both breasts are made to produce milk for their offsprings. The
milk ducts are connected to each other and meet at the nipple. Underneath the breast tissue is a
layer of fat which goes a long with the size of the breasts and under the fat there is a layer of
muscle.
What is breast cancer? Just like every other cancer in the body, breast cancer is an
uncontrolled growth of breast cells. Cells in the body can mutate and become abnormal when
cell division occurs. Breast cancer is when a malignant (cancerous) (malignant breast tumor
picture) tumor develops, unlike a benign (non-cancerous) (benign tumor) tumor. Usually the
cancer will begin the lobule cells (milk producing glands) and over time the cancer will spread to
other parts of the breast. Breast cancer have many different stages, the different stages refer to
how far the cancer has spread from the original tumor. (Stages)
What are some of the statists? 1 in every 8 women have the change of developing
breast cancer in their life time before the age of 80. That is only a 12% of every woman in
America to develop it. Only 5-10% of cancers are due to an abnormality inherited, 85-90% of
breast cancers are due to genetic abnormalities that happen with aging process
(breastcancer.org).
What are the preventions for breast cancer? In a womans life there are many factors of
why she could develop breast cancer. There are ways of prevention for breast cancer a women
cannot control. This would include; gender, age, genetics, race, and exposure to estrogen.
However there are ways a woman can lower her risk, this would include; Eating a balanced diet,
maintaining a healthy weight, not smoking, limiting alcohol and exercising regularly,
breastfeeding, staying away from harmful chemicals, exposure to estrogen, and stress and
anxiety (mayoclinic.org).
Discussion
For a lot of the preventions for breast cancer are easy to accomplish in daily lives. None of the
major items need to take drastic measures and make life hard. Most women could achieve each
one of these preventions if she wanted to alter her way of living. Essentially making her life
healthier. Healthier life
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For women who have trouble with their weight, being overweight is associated with
increased risk of breast cancer, especially for women after menopause. Having more fat tissue
means having higher estrogen levels, which can increase breast cancer risk.
Going along with weight, diet is a suspected risk factor. Some believe that eating too
much cholesterol and other fats are risk factors for cancer, and studies show that eating a lot of
red and processed meats is associated with a higher risk of breast cancer. A low-fat diet rich in
fruits and vegetables is generally recommended.
Keeping up with exercising can reduce breast cancer risk. The American Cancer Society
recommends engaging in 45-60 minutes of physical exercise 5 or more days a week (Institute
of Medicine). A woman could exercise with making a habit of getting her heart rate up for 30
minutes to an hour each day. Walking is one of the easiest ways, fast walking around the
neighborhood or while doing errands.
For those women who love to drink, alcohol consumption has shown a breast cancer risk
increase with the amount of alcohol a woman drinks. Alcohol can limit your livers ability to
control blood levels of the hormone estrogen, which in turn can increase risk. Same with
smoking, smoking is associated with a small increase in breast cancer risk, and other sorts of
cancers.
Many women do not realize this but exposure to estrogen because the female hormone
estrogen stimulates breast cell growth, exposure to estrogen over long periods of time, without
any breaks, can increase the risk of breast cancer such as taking combined hormone replacement
therapy for several years or more, or taking estrogen alone for more than 10 years. Using oral
contraceptives (birth control pills) appears to slightly increase a womans risk for breast cancer,
but only for a limited period of time. Birth control
Stress and anxiety can increase breast cancer risk. When the body is put under a lot of
stress or anxiety, the body cannot function correctly. And when the body cannot function
correctly, cells can mutate. Keeping a stress free life can help with cancer but it can also help in
every aspect of life.
Conclusion
Are there ways to prevent breast cancer when DNA is not involved? There are many ways a
women can prevent breast cancer and because they are so simple more women should have an
understanding of this and how they can change their lives to lower their chance of developing
this disease. Women should understand that living healthier and changing their unhealthy life
styles could save their lives, and not just for cancer.
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