Breast Cancer Awareness Month

Today kicks off the first day of Breast Cancer Awareness Month. The battle to conquer this disease has made significant progress in the last twenty years. Having had a mother who defeated the disease I am extremely grateful for the strides doctors and researchers have made at treating breast cancer.
Since I have seen someone close to me undergo treatment for this disease I have often wondered what causes breast cancer and how it can be prevented. While I don’t know all of the answers to these questions since they have yet to be completely answered, I have learned a few things about the subject. I know that since my mother has had breast cancer I am at a higher risk to get it. I also have been told by our family practitioner that a healthy diet and body weight is a key factor in preventing this disease and many other chronic diseases that plague Americans today.

Recently in a Bloomberg.com article, I read that while modern medicine has improved tremendously over the last few years at treating this disease, “the U.S. may be threatened by a trend among women toward obesity, a risk factor for the disease.”

An article in the Examiner said this about breast cancer and obesity, “Rising obesity rates threaten to derail the decreased breast cancer mortality rate. To avoid breast cancer fatality, it is particularly important for post-menopausal women to maintain a healthy weight through physical activity and healthy eating. From cancer.gov, obesity increases the risk of cancers of the breast (postmenopausal), endometrium (the lining of the uterus), colon, kidney, and esophagus, in addition to increasing the risk of coronary heart disease, stroke, and high blood pressure. Avoiding weight gain is an effective way to decrease these risks.”

I have many amazing women in my life that exercise regularly and try to eat healthy, yet they still are overweight/obese. Losing pounds hasn’t happened for them yet and if they do lose pounds they struggle to maintain the lost weight. As a woman and with what I know about the obesity rate in America and in the lives of many women I know, I don’t want them to be in the high risk category for this dreadful disease of breast cancer.

Unicity International’s Breast Cancer Awareness Month Challenge
Introduce Slim to the women in your lives that struggle with weight and may be at risk for breast cancer. Ladies let’s do our part in the fight against breast cancer.

~Kari