The majority of women believe that breast cancer only threatens elderly women, but the truth is that it is a threat to women of all ages. Which is why you should do your best to protect yourself every which way that you can. Even if you believe that there is nothing you could actually do about it, one of the main things you should remember is that your lifestyle is one of the most influencing factors in regard to your health.
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Tips for Good Breast Health
1. Watch Your Weight
If you have overweight, your chances of being affected by breast cancer increase manifold while your chances of surviving it decreases. This is why you have to make sure that you maintain optimal weight. You can achieve this by having a healthy lifestyle along with having a balanced diet.
2. What You Eat
In order to have a healthy diet, you should eat a lot of fruits and vegetables in their raw form. Besides this, it is also important to have a lot of lean protein that you can find in fish and chicken breast. Even if it is your choice of preference in meat, you have to make sure that you have red meat only in moderation. Whole grains and vegetable oils are also important for your health.
3. Alcohol
Although it doesn’t hurt to have a glass of wine from time to time, you should know that having alcoholic beverages on a regular basis increases the chances of breast cancer by 21%. Instead, you should have some fresh grapes. The skin of grapes is known to contain resveratrol that decreases the estrogen levels which, in turn, decreases the chances of breast cancer.
4. Stay Active
You don’t have to go to the gym every day, but you should do your best to have an active lifestyle. Even if you start working out at the later stages of your life, you can decrease your chances of being affected by breast cancer by 10%-30%. All you have to do is to have a half an hour walk five times a week.
5. Family History
There are some factors that are independent of you, such as your family history. If you had relatives with breast cancer, you belong to the high-risk group. This means that you have higher than average chances of being affected by breast cancer.
6. Get Checked Out
Generally speaking, all women should get checked out at least once every three years after the age of 40. However, if you have a family history of breast cancer, you should start the screening 10 years before your relative was diagnosed. You should have digital mammography and if you belong to the high-risk group, you should also have a sonogram or an MRI.
[ Read: 5 Yoga Postures to Increase Breast Size ]
7. Hormone Replacement Therapy
After menopause, a lot of women opt for hormone replacement therapy, not taking into consideration that this might increase their chances of being affected by breast cancer. In order to make the symptoms of menopause better, opt for the drugs that don’t come with progesterone and limit the use of drugs to three years. Also, avoid bio-identical hormones.
8. No Smoking
Although it isn’t 100% certain, it seems like smoking increases the risks of breast cancer in the case of some women. Although this might not be your case, the truth is that you can never know and it is better to be safe than sorry.
9. Breastfeeding
Some women think of breastfeeding as a nuisance, while others are fans of it. Regardless of your position on this matter, you should try breastfeeding as long as possible. According to the studies in the field, the women who breastfeed their babies for at least a year have lower chances of getting breast cancer than the women who chose not to breastfeed.
10. Estrogen-Blocking Drug
If you have a family history of breast cancer, you should be thinking about taking estrogen-blocking drugs starting at the age of 60. Naturally, this is something you will have to discuss with your doctor, but the pros of the drug might overweigh the cons. Still, let’s not forget that it is still a drug and it might have unforeseen side effects.(1)
We all know that breast cancer is not something to joke about, so you should do your best to protect yourself against it and to have a healthy life.
