Dr C: “At last! Sensible celeb health advice”
Dr C agrees with Angelina Jolie’s surgeon, Kristi Funk – you can help to reduce your risk of getting breast cancer
You could easily think this new Y stat on breast cancer is yet more celebrity health nonsense, but Angelina’s surgeon, Kristi Funk, is right. Unfortunately, you can’t influence all the breast cancer risk factors, like the age you started your period, but there are some things you can control, such as weight, smoking and booze consumption.
WATCH YOUR DIET
Genetics play a part, but as Kristi says, “Every day the choices we make bring us closer to cancer or move us further away”. One important example is menopause; if you go into your menopause at a healthy weight, as healthy as you can be, you’re far more likely to reach a ripe old age.
KNOW YOUR HISTORY
Kristi has talked about the influence of genes, too, saying that genetic mutations, like a faulty BRCA gene (which Angelina has), only cause five to ten per cent of breast cancers, and 87 per cent of women with breast cancer don’t have an immediate family member with the disease. It’s worth knowing your family history because if all the women in your family get breast cancer under the age of 50, there’s a good chance genetics are involved, but nobody could have told Angelina with certainty that she’d get cancer. She decided to have a breast removed because she didn’t want to live her life under a cloud of worry.
Diet is another factor you can influence. Kristi explains it well; a normal cell can become mutated by UV rays or smoke, and become a cancer seed. Whether or not that seed develops into cancer depends on the soil you create. I like that analogy. People often don’t realise that every few minutes some of our cells mutate. Most of the time our immune system deals with that so the cell doesn’t survive, but you can either help or hinder that process, and eating a good diet is a great way to help.
I also maintain, like Kristi, that knowing your body will save your life, because it’s how you spot changes. Only one in ten breast lumps will be cancer, but always get them checked.
COMBAT STRESS
Another factor we often overlook is negative emotion, because stress hormones are linked to cancer, particularly chronic daily stress. We can’t avoid loss, disappointment or regret – they’re a part of life – but we can try not to hold on to rage, and to find ways to combat stress, from exercise to rest. For once, someone from Hollywood is talking sense!