How to Outsmart Breast Cancer: Ways to Decrease Your Risk

Breast cancer is a malignant (cancerous) tumor that starts from the cells of the breast. Other than skin cancer, breast cancer is the most common type of cancer in the United States, affecting more than 211,000 women and 1,700 men each year. Scientists are currently studying breast cancer to try to find out the causes as well as better ways to prevent, find, and treat it. Some common symptoms of breast cancer include changes in the color, size, and shape of your breast or nipples, discharge from the nipples, inverted nipples, or feeling abnormal lumps in the breast. There is often no pain in the first stages of breast cancer which is why it's important to regularly perform self breast exams at home. In order to catch potential signs of cancer, it's important to know how your breast tissue normally feels. The self breast exam is fairly simple to perform, but if you're unsure of how to do it, your OB-GYN can demonstrate the proper way to perform this exam during one of your visits.

While Caucasian women are diagnosed with breast cancer more often than their African American counterparts, African American women have the highest death rate from breast cancer than any other racial and ethnic group in this country. But regardless of your ethnic or racial background, early detection is the key to improving your odds of beating the disease or decreasing your risks of getting it altogether. This is true even if you are genetically predisposed to getting breast cancer. By taking the following steps, you can help protect your breast from this disease that affects the lives of many everyday: