Instructor: Jay Triber
English 101
April 23, 2013
Preventing Breast Cancer Have you ever wonder why certain people get cancer or what you can do to prevent it? Studies have shown that one in every eight woman will develop breast cancer over the course of their life. Breast cancer is from breast tissue, commonly from the inner lining of milk ducts or the lobules that supply the ducts with milk. The first symptom of breast cancer is typically a lump that looks dissimilar from the rest of the breast tissue. Over 80% of breast cancer cases are discovered when the woman feels a lump in the breast. Breast cancers are detected by a mammogram at an early period of a woman’s life. “However, women should bear in mind that heart attacks kill 6 times more women than breast cancer does” (Kabat). Women should not be frighten about this deadly disease, but instead should take care of their body, seek regular medical attention, and obtain education and information about the prevention to breast cancer. Breast cancer is cancer that affects the cell of the breast, which becomes abnormal and multiply under no control in order to form a tumor. Like any other cancer it develops with time, and can be detected after medical tests have been taken. Cancer can start at an early period of your life or at the end of your life. Scientist cannot state when a person can acquire breast cancer, since there is not an exact time it can start or even start at all. There is a higher risk in woman under the age of 45 to develop breast cancer. “Breast cancer is not common in younger women; only 1.8 percent of all cases are diagnosed in women from 20 to 34, and 10 percent in women from 35 to 44. However, when it does occur, the disease tends to be more deadly in younger women than in older ones” (Grady).Genes carry information in the form of DNA, and a person can be born with mutated cells creating an abnormal protein. Having abnormal protein can cause cells to rapidly reproduce uncontrollably and become cancerous cells. Initiated by unusual genes passed from parent to child, breast cancer is thought to be hereditary. Since women are incubator for a fetus is it most likely for the child to obtain any diseases the mother has acquire during the period of time. Besides abnormality of the cells and hereditary, breast cancer can also be based of you race/ethnicity. Asian American and Pacific Islander women have the lowest rate over white women having the highest rate to attain breast cancer. Race and ethnicity have different prevalence rates establishing factors to increase the opportunity of breast cancer, for example; age of period, menopause, first birth, body weight and number of children. Depending on your race and ethnicity, we tend to develop if we can obtain breast cancer based on family history. Knowing your facts is better than not knowing at all, getting educated can prevent further problem. Breast cancer is not a skin cancer that accumulates in the breast area, but in the inner lining of milk ducts or the lobules that supply the ducts with milk creating a tumor. This type of cancer is curable, and treatment can help demolish the disease. There are multiple actions you can do to cure breast cancer, but knowing if you do have cancer is the first step in the process. More than a few of the symptoms can be seen in the breast area like, a lump in the breast under the underarm, swelling of the armpit, pain and tenderness of the breast area, noticeable flattening or pockmark on the breast, any drastic change of the breast in texture/color/temperature, any change in the nipple, and any noticeably different from any other area on either breast.
Maintaining good health habits can decrease your outcome of getting breast cancer. “One study, using NCI Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) data, estimated that in 2007 in the United States, about 34,000 new cases of cancer in men (4 percent) and 50,500 in women (7 percent) were