Breasts: An Owner’s Manual: Every Woman’s Guide to Reducing Cancer Risk, Making Treatment Choices and Optimising Outcomes. Kristi Funk

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      Abortions and stillbirths don’t cause breast cancer either, though a link has often been suspected due to the estrogen surges that occur with pregnancy. I want all of you affected personally by any type of terminated pregnancy to read on and know this good news applies to you! When most women hear the word abortion, they commonly consider that word to mean an induced abortion, a medical procedure performed to voluntarily end a pregnancy. But there’s also the natural event of a spontaneous abortion, usually referred to as a miscarriage, which means the loss of a fetus before five months (twenty weeks) into the pregnancy. These generally result from genetic issues with the fetus that are incompatible with life, or from problems with the environment in which the unborn child is growing. And then there’s a stillborn birth, which refers to the death of a fetus after five months’ gestation while still in the uterus. While the cause is usually unknown, common identifiable reasons include nicotine, alcohol, or drugs taken by the mother, physical trauma, umbilical cord problems, Rh disease, and radiation poisoning.

      Research examining whether abortions cause breast cancer should relieve any concerns you have. Data from fifty-five studies spanning sixteen countries and including 83,000 women with breast cancer show no connection between breast cancer and spontaneous or induced abortions.⁴⁷ A panel of over one hundred leading world experts convened by the National Cancer Institute (NCI) in 2003 performed a rigorous review of the scientific evidence regarding abortions and breast cancer risk.⁴⁸ They concluded that no correlation exists between breast cancer and abortion, either spontaneous or induced. They deemed the level of scientific evidence for these findings as “well established,” which is the highest level achievable.

      With such an important and charged issue as abortion, we must be right when declaring a connection or not. We must rely upon data that is free from responder bias. We deserve and have the highest level of evidence from which to draw conclusions. Hence the consensus statements of both the 2003 NCI report and the concurrent American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) Committee on Gynecologic Practice report rely upon only the most rigorously conducted research. Ethical and political disputes aside, let’s hear this good news clearly: “the totality of worldwide epidemiological evidence indicates that pregnancies ending as either spontaneous or induced abortions do not have adverse effects on women’s subsequent risk of developing breast cancer.”⁴⁹

      DOES CHANGING YOUR ANATOMY CAUSE CANCER?

      Making changes to your natural anatomy doesn’t cause breast cancer, though you might worry it would based on misinformation that trauma (accidental or surgical) upsets the natural state of things.

      Let’s first talk breast implants: if you have them, should you have regrets too? Whether saline or silicone, above or below your chest muscle, decades old or brand new, textured or smooth, round or shaped, implants do not cause breast cancer.⁵⁰ In fact, a study of 3,139 women who got an augmentation between 1953 and 1980 shows that, after an average of 15.5 years, these women have 31 percent less breast cancer than would be expected.⁵¹ And this isn’t the only such study. A meta-analysis of seventeen studies also showed a significant decrease in cancer incidence among those with cosmetic implants by one-third.⁵² Before you rush out to protect your breasts with implants, the decrease in risk likely corresponds to the facts that women with implants generally have a lower body mass index (BMI) than those without implants, and have their children prior to age thirty, two known factors that decrease breast cancer.⁵³ That being said, implants can complicate the detection of an existing breast cancer, so I do recommend more rigorous screening for those who have them. Generally speaking, women with breast implants in whom breast cancer develops are diagnosed at similar stages and have equivalent survival rates as compared with breast cancer patients without implants.⁵⁴

      It’s important to note, however, that the World Health Organization has confirmed a probable association between breast implants and the rare development of anaplastic large cell lymphoma (ALCL), a cancer of the immune system, but that is not the breast, and ALCL is not breast cancer.⁵⁵ Implant-associated ALCL occurs in approximately 1 per 5,000 women with textured implants (rarely with smooth implants) and presents with fluid forming around the implant an average of eight years after placement. Thankfully, just removing the implant and the capsule that forms around it completely cures 97.5 percent of women. If needed, those affected can receive a targeted antibody-drug called brentuximab; chemotherapy and radiation are rarely indicated.

      We also know that while implants don’t cause cancer, augmentation and implants after mastectomy can present long-term complications, including changes in nipple or breast sensation, undesirable implant positioning, implant rupture, tight scar tissue around the implant (capsular contracture), or persistent pain.

      On the other end of the spectrum, you should also know that no link exists between breast reduction surgery (reduction mammoplasty) and breast cancer. In fact, you may actually see a decrease in breast cancer risk. Medical literature supports the notion that breast reduction surgery decreases risk consistently around 30 to 40 percent, with even higher numbers reported when removing two cup sizes (over six hundred grams) of tissue per breast.⁵⁶ By removing additional ducts and lobules that carry the potential to become cancerous, there aren’t as many around to cause trouble.⁵⁷ Another prevailing theory as to why reductions help suggests that removing fat (i.e., adipose tissue) favorably changes the world where breast cells live, called the microenvironment.⁵⁸

      While we’re on the topic, you should know that breast size doesn’t directly affect risk either; small-breasted women don’t have less risk of breast cancer than large-breasted ones. However, there’s one connection between breast size and cancer when analyzing the composition of your breast tissue.⁵⁹ Remember, the more ducts and lobules you have (as opposed to adipose tissue), the more cells you possess that can become cancerous. To demonstrate, a prospective study compared self-reported bra size and cancer risk among of 88,826 premenopausal women followed for eight years.⁶⁰ They held a number of factors constant so as to isolate the effect of breast size. After stratification by body mass index (BMI), they found a significant trend for increasing bra cup size and greater breast cancer risk in one and only one group—the leaner women. Among overweight or obese women, no association between bra cup size and breast cancer was found.

      In other words, leaner women with generous breasts have more breast cancer precisely because they have very little fat, and therefore, a lot more glandular tissue. More glandular tissue simply equals more breast cancer risk. In this group of 420 leaner women with breast cancer, 96 percent wore smaller than a D-cup, so the subgroup of large-breasted lean women at risk due to size alone is small. The vast majority of large breasts are large because of all the fat surrounding the glandular tissue (and as stated, this fat is very unlikely to become cancerous). Conversely, small breasts generally have less fat, and potentially have the same net volume of glandular tissue as many larger breasts. Therefore, in the final analysis, women should have a similar incidence of breast cancer risk irrespective of their breast volume. The majority of studies attempting to correlate size to risk conclude that no such association exists.⁶¹

      ACHOO! CAN YOU “CATCH” BREAST CANCER?

      Wondering if you can catch breast cancer or give it to someone else—whether it’s by breathing it through the air, or from exposure to bodily fluids such as breast milk, blood, and saliva, or from sharing utensils, kissing, or having sex—might at first seem ridiculous. But this is actually a real question I’m asked. So here’s your real answer.

      When the DNA within a breast cell mutates, that cell starts to grow and divide and spread without control or order; that’s how cancer happens. And that’s the only way it starts. Exposure to someone else’s mutated breast cell doesn’t do anything to your own cells’ DNA. Yet several studies have shown that many people believe breast cancer to be contagious; these findings suggest СКАЧАТЬ