Each year about 240,000 women are diagnosed with breast cancer and about 40,000 will die from it.  There is no way to prevent it for sure, but there are things you can do to lower your risk.  There are risk factors that are innate and you are simply born with them and there are other that you can control.  To fully understand your risk of breast cancer you need to look at these risk factors. By understanding your risk of contracting breast cancer you can work with your doctor to try to lower these risks.  Just because it runs in the family doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll get it – so don’t be disheartened about that. 

The things you don’t have control over include your race, genes, sex, age, menopausal status, drugs and treatment, menses onset and family history.  The things you can control are pregnancy, breastfeeding, hormone replacement therapy use, alcohol, smoking, diet, exercise and your weight.

You can lower your risk for breast cancer by taking care of your breast health.  Doing regular self breast exams is one good way to take care of your breast health.  This can help detect breast cancer at an early stage and can be very effective in protecting your breast cancer health.  

You can also educate yourself about breast lumps, cysts, tumors and other breast abnormalities.  The more education you submit yourself to the better chances you have of staying aware.  When you are aware of changes in your breast than you’ll be able to detect things early, which will lower your chances of developing full blown diseases. 

There is hope that breast cancer may one day be preventable.  Estrogen is the cause of almost 80% of breast cancer there are many studies that are focused on drugs to affect estrogen levels.  There have been some luck with estrogen receptor modulators that can help in preventing breast cancer.  There is also work being done to prevent mastectomies from having to be performed.