9 Lifestyle Tips to Minimize Your Breast Cancer Risk

Breast cancer is one disease that brings fear to the hearts of women. While mammograms and regular self breast examinations are recommended by experts to aid early detection, here are 9 things you can do to reduce risk factors and aid having a breast cancer life…

1. Go high on veggies. Eat a number of raw or lightly cooked cruciferous vegetables such as cabbage, broccoli, spinach, pumpkin leaves (ugu), sprouts, carrots and tomatoes. These are believed to have phytochemical components that protect against cancer. Note that these phytochemical components can be destroyed by heat, so, eating the vegetable raw or lightly cooked is very essential.

2. Cut down on the bottles. Minimize or avoid alcohol consumption. Drinking just one alcoholic beverage per day may increase breast cancer risk by 10 percent while two drinks per day may by thirty percent. So, keep those martinis and margaritas to a minimum.

READ ALSO: 5 Steps To Do A Breast Self Examination

3. Being a mother helps. Research has shown that women who give birth early in life have reduced chances of having breast cancer compared to women who give birth later in life. In addition, breastfeeding helps to curb the risk of this disease as it temporarily reduces a woman’s estrogen levels.

4. Drink green tea. This may help boost your immune system to fight tumour cells as it has great antioxidant properties.

5. Swap your oils. Avoid saturated and trans fat found in butter and margarine. Always check food labels in order to make healthier choices. Concentrate on mono unsaturated fats in vegetable oils, olive oils or omega 3s found in oily fish like sardine and salmon.

READ ALSO: 9 Breast Cancer Risk Myths You Should Discard

6. An estrogen-blocking drug. Talk to your doctor about using estrogen blocking drugs if there’s a history of cancer in your family and have other high risk indicators. Discuss options available.

7. Do some workouts. You don’t have to be a workout freak but moderate daily exercise will reduce your risk by 15 – 25 percent. 30 minutes of brisk walking five days a week may lower your cancer risk by decreasing circulating levels of estrogen in the body.

8. Long-term hormone therapy? Think again. Have you been on a hormonal therapy for menopausal symptoms for long? You may want to ask your doctor about other options as it increases the risk of breast cancer.

9. Keep the weight down.  There are many health risk involved in being overweight and breast cancer risk is one of them. Strive to be at the ideal weight for your height as an overweight woman runs a 25 percent higher risk of developing the disease compared to a woman at an ideal weight.

Finally, learn how to do the self breast examination and go for your thermography screenings annually as this fosters the earliest possible detection of unhealthy breast tissue. This is an effective way to determine your risk.