Great article by Dr. Susan Love

The newspaper headline reads, “Red meat causes breast cancer,” and breast cancer experts across the country wince. We know what the day will bring: alarmed phone calls and e-mails. We will be stopped on the street with questions about the hazards of hamburgers.

Women fear breast cancer more than any other disease. Not even heart disease, which more women die from, brings with it the same sense of anxiety. That’s probably because we feel we have tools to prevent heart disease — diet, exercise and even drugs — while a breast cancer diagnosis can strike like a lightening bolt from the blue.

Doctors don’t know what causes it, or how to prevent it. Most women who get it have no risk factors. So every news story, every celebrity diagnosed and every research study sends panic through the whole female population.

The sense that breast cancer is increasing isn’t necessarily wrong. The absolute number of women with cancer is rising as the huge baby boom generation ages. But the rate of new cases — the percentage of women with breast cancer — dropped after 2001, following years of rapid run-up. In the 1980s and 1990s, as mammograms were introduced, the numbers went up; of course, the more breast cancer you look for, the more you find. The number has stopped ballooning now that mammograms are accessible to nearly all women who want them.

More at link below


http://www.statesmanjournal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061205/OPINION/61130028