Breast Cancer Risk Factors You Can’t Change

Nearly everyone has certain factors that increase their odds of developing breast cancer, and some of these factors are fixed, meaning you can’t change them. These include:

• Age
• Being born female
• Inheriting certain genetic mutations
• Having a family or personal history of breast cancer
• Having dense breast tissue
• Starting menstruation early
• Going through menopause late

Having one or more risk factors does not mean you will get the disease, and not all risk factors for breast cancer are fixed. In fact, it turns out there are several ways to reduce your chances of developing or dying from breast cancer, even when the odds aren’t in your favor.

Tips to Reduce Your Breast Cancer Risk

Managing your risk of developing breast cancer can feel overwhelming. But whether you have a genetic susceptibility to the disease or not, there are plenty of things you can do to safeguard your health.

Be proactive

Screening won’t reduce your risk of developing breast cancer, but it can improve your chances of a good outcome if you are diagnosed. If you have a family history of breast cancer or other risk factors that predispose you to the disease, talk to your doctor about putting together a screening and surveillance program that’s tailored to your unique needs. If you have dense breasts, for example, it’s important to develop an awareness of what the tissue feels like so you can check in with your doctor if you notice changes.

Limit estrogen exposure

About 80% of breast cancers are estrogen receptor positive, meaning estrogen fuels the cancer. Extended exposure to estrogen from oral contraceptives or long-term hormone replacement therapy (HRT) may increase breast cancer risk. “For women at increased risk of breast cancer, taking drugs that block estrogen, such as Tamoxifen and Raloxifene, can dramatically reduce their risk of developing hormone-receptor-positive breast cancer, but they come with side effects.

Maintain a healthy weight

Being overweight, particularly after menopause, increases your risk of developing breast cancer. The reason, in part, is because once the ovaries stop making estrogen, fat cells step in. The more fat tissue you have, the more estrogen you produce, which can create a more welcoming environment for breast cancer. Being overweight is also linked with higher levels of growth factors, such as insulin, which can encourage tumor development.

Pay attention to your sleep cycle

The timing and quality of your sleep plays an important role in bolstering your immune system and supporting your metabolic health. Maintaining an insufficient or erratic sleep schedule can result in metabolic changes that affect body composition and impair the immune system.

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The incidence of prostatic cancer is very uncommon in men younger than 45, but becomes more common with advancing age. In order words prostate cancer is a disease of the aging population.

Risk Factors

While the cause of prostate cancer is exactly not known, certain things/factors have been linked with increasing a person’s likelihood of having the disease. Such factors are called risk factors (anything that increases a person’s chance of getting a disease). In prostate cancer, risk factors that have been identified include: Age, genetics and obesity.

The outlined risk factors are not absolute because based on experience, some men who don’t have any of this risk factors may still have the disease while on the other hand, those with one or more risk factors may eventually not have the disease.

Signs Of Prostate Cancer

Although, there are often no warning signs indicative of early state of the disease. Nevertheless, the following symptoms may be seen in persons with prostate cancer, when the cancer has spread beyond the prostate:

• A frequent need to urinate, especially at night
• Difficulty starting or stopping a stream of urine
• A weak or interrupted urinary stream
• Leaking of urine when laughing or coughing
• Inability to urinate standing up
• A painful or burning sensation during urination or ejaculation
• Blood in urine or semen

These symptoms often mimic those seen in BPH (Benign Prostate Hyperplasia: formerly known as Benign Prostate Hypertrophy). However, BPH is not Cancer neither is it indicative of prostate cancer.

Anatomy of Male Reproductive System Showing The Prostrate Gland

How Then Do I Know If I Have Prostate Cancer?

Prostate cancer can only be detected early through screening, since the disease may present with little or no symptoms at the initial phase in individuals with the disease till the cancer is advanced.

Screening services available for prostate cancer include: Prostate Specific Antigen (PSA monitoring) , Digital Rectal Examination (DRE), Biopsy (diagnostic and confirmative of prostate cancer)

Treatment Options For Prostate Cancer

Treatment options available for prostate cancer include:

• Surgery for prostate cancer
• Cryotherapy
• Hormone therapy
• Chemotherapy
• Radiation therapy

This treatment option can either be used singly, or combined.

Survival Rates For Prostate Cancer

The overall prognosis for prostate cancer is very good especially if it is detected early. The 5-year survival rates for Prostate Cancer (i.e. the number of people who are alive 5 years after they have been diagnosed with prostate cancer compared with survivals of the same age-group who don’t have the disease) is near 100%. With new technological advancement in treatment and research, prostate cancer can actually be cured. In fact, in the United States, over 2.5 million men are found to be still living several years after they have been diagnosed with prostate cancer.

If you are above age 40, go for Prostate Cancer Screening.

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This is a topic that everyone who is passionate about his field of specialization would go to any length to defend. However, to a lay person on the street with cancer or with family members affected by cancer, the most important issue is, which of this can put cancer at bay permanently without the daily grind and untold financial, emotional, physical and family hardships that go with the diagnosis!

Gene therapy (the use of DNA to supplement or alter genes in the individual affected) is here to stay although it has not proven to be as effective considering the hype that came with the introduction in 1990 when Ashanti DeSilva was first treated. The prohibitive cost is also of significance as it is not something that was readily available and accessible by the masses.

Immune modulation is achieved by actively stimulating cellular immunity by increasing endorphin production by feedback phenomenon, late in the night to early morning. These activated cells then attack the cells implicated in various disease states. These conditions include HIV, cancer, allergy, resistant Tuberculosis, typhoid, malaria, crohn’s disease, autoimmunity, chronic fatigue, immune dysfunction, multiple sclerosis, autism etc. There are a variety of drugs that have shown promise in this regard. One good example is Low Dose Naltrexone (Lodonal 4.5mg) the observation of which was started by Dr. Bernard Bihari. In our future discussions, more in-depth information about low dose naltrexone would be provided.

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At American Hospitals, we not only provide patients with the best possible care, but also maintain an extensive research program.
We focus on basic laboratory research, translational research that bridges discoveries made in the laboratory and those made in the clinic, as well as mathematical and computational research which is directed at analyzing and interpreting biomedical data.Within our research program, there are three key areas Design and Analysis Clinical Research and Development and Operations.  Our goal is to identify and solve clinical challenges, whether it’s devising new surgical techniques, discovering innovative therapies, or developing new processes to safely reduce HIV/Aids, cancer and blood disorder cases. We are currently undertaking a 90-Day bridging clinical trial for LODONAL ; Naltrexone hydrochloride (HCl), 4.5 mg titled : A Bridging Study to Evaluate the Effects of LODONAL as an Immune-System Regulating Agent in Subjects, in which their Immune System is Compromised with State Hospital, Asubiaro, Osogbo, Osun State, Nigeria as our trial center. This is a single center, open-label, randomized bridging study to confirm the safety and efficacy of LODONAL in a Nigerian population. Eligible subjects will be randomly assigned to enter into one of two treatment arms:

The first group of eligible subjects (approximately 75) will be treated in an open-label manner with 4.5 mg doses of LODONAL once daily for 90 days (Group A). A second group (controls) of eligible subjects will have delayed therapy with an observation period, whereby the subjects will not be treated during the first 90 days but observed; then the subjects will be treated with LODONAL 4.5 mg once daily for 90 days in an open-label treatment (Group B). Both groups will continue with their standard of care treatment in addition to taking LODONAL during this study.

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