Think Pinker

We hear breast cancer and we worry will we be next. Perhaps getting a better understanding of the risk of getting breast cancer can help you relax and do a better job of protecting yourself.

All women are at risk of developing breast cancer and that risk goes up with age. Over a 90 year span 1 out of 7 women will develop breast cancer. The good news is there are ways to reduce your risk.

But how much do preventative factors reduce your risk? Some as much as 40% but of course those numbers change and are dependent on relative and absolute risk. Relative risk tells you how much of something will change your risk.  For example if you do nothing your risk won’t change but then if you do something like take a pill your risk will go down (or up) by x%. The absolute risk is the size of your own risk and this depends what your risks were to start with.

Let’s look at an example. If you have no history of breast cancer but you smoke your risk of breast cancer goes up. Let’s say your risk of breast cancer is 10% and you smoke which increases your risk by 30%. That means you’re risk is 40% where as if you didn’t smoke your risk would remain at the 10%.

Your risk can go down too. Let’s say you had a lumpectomy for your breast cancer and there is a 30% chance of return. However if you also have radiation your risk is reduced by 66%. This is a relative risk and

There’s all kinds of fancy formulas on the Breastcancer.org site to calculate these risks but the bottom line is you should do the things that will reduce your risk and avoid the things that increase your risk.