Total Access Medical - Direct Primary Care Blog

What would you do if your best friend (or sister, aunt, daughter) told you she had breast cancer? Would you know how to support her — or even what to say?

 One in eight women in the United States will be diagnosed with breast cancer in her lifetime, according to the National Breast Cancer Foundation. Early detection and better treatments have increased survival rates — there are more than 4 million breast cancer survivors in this country — but the disease is expected to kill more than 42,000 women in 2024. 

When people think of breast cancer, most think of “pink” and breast cancer in women. But the truth is men develop breast cancer, too. Men make up about 1% of all breast cancer cases, which means 1 in 726 men will be diagnosed in their lifetimes. The diagnosis is rare in men, but that is still a lot of men getting breast cancer.  

Healthcare providers use cancer staging systems to plan treatment. Staging cancer also helps providers set a prognosis, or what you can expect after treatment. Breast cancer staging depends on factors like breast cancer type, tumor size and location, and whether cancer has spread to other areas of your body.

For many years, the general recommendation was for women to do a breast self-exam once a month to detect breast cancer. The breast self-exam was designed to help familiarize women with their own breast tissue so that they would be more likely to notice a lump that could be a cancerous mass sooner and receive treatment in a timely manner. Recently, though, that recommendation has fallen by the wayside. 

According to the World Health Organization, breast cancer is the most common cancer among women, impacting over one and a half million women each year. There are currently more than three million breast cancer survivors in the United States alone.

Unfortunately, a “cancer-proof” diet doesn’t exist, but there are many lifestyle factors that can help lower your overall risk.

Women with higher body mass index (BMI) face an increased risk of not detecting their breast tumor until it has become large, according to a study. Researchers said the findings suggest that women with higher BMI may need shorter intervals between mammography screening exams.  

Many factors over the course of a lifetime can influence your breast cancer risk. You can't change some factors, such as getting older or your family history, but you can help lower your risk of breast cancer by taking care of your health in the following ways:

There are several lifestyle changes that can help reduce the risk of breast cancer.