Women’s bodies, like men’s, are complicated. We have so many things that can go wrong with our reproductive organs, but we also have other body parts and concerns to look after as well. For men, it’s the prostate that is a major concern, especially as he ages. For women though, her breasts and her breast [...]
There are apparently now two drugs that are used as preventive measures for women who are at exceptionally high risk of getting breast cancer to take. They basically are prescribed if, through screening, you have shown a big predisposition toward getting breast cancer by expressing some of the genes that have been linked to a [...]
Ok, I don’t even know where to start with how insecure this young woman must be. Heidi, we know you live in the land of beauty, where bigger seems to be better, and everyone is obsessed with remaining a size zero, but you seem to be the epitome of what is wrong with Hollywood right [...]
We all know that breast cancer is often fueled by changes in estrogen levels. We actually have a few different types of estrogen levels, and it hasn’t exactly been determined what is a “safe” level of this female hormone. However, excessive or highly fluctuating levels of estrogen have been linked to increases in breast cancer [...]
Some controversial news, or shall I say opinions, recently surfaced this week on recommendations by healthcare panels to prevent breast cancer – even up to one third of the cases of breast cancer here in the US, or perhaps the world. Their recommendation was that women eat less and exercise more. Because obesity is associated [...]
Recently in Poland, a slogan that was devised for campaigning in favor of breast cancer awareness was slammed as being sexist. Why? Well you tell me why. It went something like this “I check the breasts of all my workers” or something to that effect. Women are up in arms because it implies inappropriate sexual [...]
Apparently, aspirin, that cheap little pill that has fallen our of favor as a pain reliever of choice, but now has many other favorably viewed health benefits for your heart purportedly, may actually help you survive and avoid another recurrence of breast cancer if you are a breast cancer survivor. The study that was carried [...]
MRI’s are very expensive, and even if you have insurance, you can find yourself paying out the wazoo if you have to have one for a specific health problem or suspected issue. That is why some scoffed when MRI’s began to be used as scans for breast cancer, or returning breast cancer, but because of [...]
The latest mammogram guidelines that were set as a result of a government appointed US advisory panel pretty much had sparks flying from the beginning when they were recommended last year. The new recommendations had women waiting until they were 50, not 40, even if they were considered a high risk group for breast cancer [...]
John Kerry, the former Democratic presidential nominee, has a wife named Teresa Heinz who is currently fighting breast cancer. I feel bad describing her that way, but didn’t know how else to tell you who she is, although she is quite an active spokesperson herself, and John Kerry’s whitehouse bid seems somehow that it was [...]
Many women apparently are refusing to have MRIs done that could greatly benefit from one of the magnetic resonance imaging tests due to their status as high risk breast cancer potential patients. MRI’s have a much better chance at detecting breast cancer when it’s in the very earliest stages in these at risk women because [...]
For women with advanced breast cancer, there may be some very good news on the horizon in extending their lives longer and perhaps helping to put them into remission, even when all hope seems lost. But does it really improve their quality of life as well? To me that is the real question. So read [...]
A newer technique in screening for breast cancer may soon be taking hold as a preferred method over the often uncomfortable mammogram. It’s called the breast thermography. How it works is it takes thermal image “photos” of your breasts from several different angles and with your body in several different positions to get the different [...]
**Since I published this, there have now been back and forth debates between a president-appointed health adviser, Kathleen Sebelius, and the government appointed panel’s recommendations to not get mammograms til your fifty. The long and short of it? Just get them when it’s right for you, or consult your doctor to figure out what is [...]
Estrogen is one of the things that can feed breast cancer, and it is one of the concerns that doctors have as to the levels of the hormone in a woman’s breast when they have breast cancer, or to determine their likelihood of getting breast cancer, so they have been trying to figure out a [...]
One part of breast cancer that isn’t addressed nearly enough by the caretakers that are thrust into the situations, such as the hospital, medical centers and the oncologists themselves, is the fact that breast cancer has a real emotional impact on couples. It often puts a strain on even the most loving and supportive of [...]
As you know, there are many, many risk factors that contribute to the likelihood of you getting breast cancer. Number one is still supposed to be genetics, since there are genetic markers that can make you several times more predisposed to getting this common cancer, although I still believe personally that lifestyle and diet habits [...]
A new and promising breast cancer drug called Avastin was being clinically trialed in patients with breast cancer, when the trials were recently stopped due to potential signs of heart failure in six of the 200 patients who were enrolled in the trials started to show signs of possible heart failure. The drug is actually [...]
I had never known that there could be a sort of “pre cancerous” diagnosis of the breast (the milk ducts in particular that supply milk to infants when a mother is breastfeeding), kind of like the diagnosis of precancerous cells in the cervix which are usually due to HPV, which it is thought currently can [...]
This is every woman’s worst nightmare, and it’s actually happening to 14 or perhaps more, women in Britain who were mistakenly told that they were breast cancer free when in fact the technician who read their scans read them incorrectly. Many other records are being poured over as well to make sure there are not [...]
I love when exciting news comes out about new drugs or treatments other than radiation and chemotherapy for breast cancer, or any other kind of cancer for that matter. This time the news is particularly exciting because it involves a new drug that researchers are saying targets and kills what they call the “master cancer [...]
In the latest news on breast cancer, it appears that lifting weights may help breast cancer survivors live to fight another day. And many many more after that. Let me explain a little further, actually what weight lifting can really help to relieve in breast cancer survivors is a condition that often happens that is [...]
When an African American female surgeon noticed that she kept seeing a trend of young black women come into the clinic where she worked that already had advanced cases of invasive breast cancer, she knew that there had to be answers and help, she just had to know where to start, and why these younger [...]
Apparently undertreatment isn’t so much a problem in breast cancer patients as over treatment of the cancer and it’s effects. The interesting part of the new study that identified this statistic is that it said that one in three women identified with breast cancer did not need any treatment at all, perhaps not beyond a [...]
Well, this is definitely not the way I want things to go in our healthcare system, but if it’s very nominal and will help the scores of people out there get health care that can’t afford it I supposed I could pay it although I admit I’d do so with mixed feelings. Right now, breast [...]
In a victory for women who are brave enough to share their breast cancer stories, especially to share their soul bearing pictures of the before and afters of a mastectomy, a woman named Sharon Adams has been victorious in a Facebook overturn which ruled her pictures to be too sexual in nature and abusive of [...]
When I read or see stories about kids who have cancer one thing always rings in my head. How is this fair? Are kids really equipped with the faculties to deal with such a blow to the body, and to the mind not to mention? But then it inevitably is almost always true that children [...]
For women who have had breast surgery such as lumpectomy, mastectomy, or other invasive and reshaping surgery for their breasts due to breast cancer, there are options to dress tastefully and fashionably without it being obvious that you’ve had this sort of breast surgery. A specialty company that I got an email about called Eloise [...]
The breast, which is one of the most noticeable, debated, attention hogging, psyche changing, important (perceived) parts of a woman’s body, is made up of several components that are actually commonly found on other areas of the body as well. The breast is such a curious part of the body. It’s perceived as a lump [...]
Well, I guess that even young women are not immune to breast cancer, and unfortunately, although breast cancer is much more rare in women under the age of the forty to fifty year range, it can be much more deadly when it occurs in a younger woman because these types are typically much more agressive [...]
A drug that was thought to be potentially promising in the treatment of breast cancer because of it’s relative effectiveness in the treatment of other types of cancer called Sutent made by drug giant Pfizer, has been stopped recently in trials. The reason is not that it was totally useless to help treat cancer, but [...]
There has been a study recently concluded on whether acrylamide, a chemical that is produced in many potato products where the potato is significantly altered from it’s natural state, like in french fries and baked potatoes, and even potatoe chips, contributes to causes of breast cancer in today’s woman’s average diet. This chemical, which has [...]
When it comes to making sure we do everything that is possible in our power to help prevent breast cancer, there are definitely some dietary items that we should consider consuming more heavily in our diet. Of course, most of them are naturally occurring foods – well make that, all of them are, and they [...]
We get to talk about so many new developments in breast cancer, breast cancer prevention and different ways to go about treating different strains of the potentially deadly disease. Well, there’s another diagnosing-type treatment that may help oncologists to determine the different “personalities” of breast cancer, and tailor the treatment to the tumors that way [...]
There may be a new tool on the horizon for doctors to use when it comes to determining the likelihood of a woman responding well to treatment for breast cancer. Since we now have genetic testing to tell a woman if she may be more susceptible genetically to getting breast cancer in the first place, [...]
Hmm, this is some very interesting information, and points to the conclusion that men may indeed need to be very worried about whether they are also carriers for the breast cancer gene, which is known for dramatically increasing the likelihood that a woman may develop breast cancer, and which also may prove to be a [...]
I decided that we should reiterate what some of the potential symptoms of breast cancer can be, since early detection and diagnosis usually leads to the best prognosis, availability of effective treatments, and time being on your side since the disease has not advanced so far that it has become untreatable. Women need to make [...]
Welll, this sounds like the stuff of science fiction, and where it’s headed I don’t know, and to be honest, even though it’s a result of the positive movement toward gene testing and breast cancer prevention through genetic testing, I’m not sure that this is a good thing that now we are starting to test [...]
In some good news for breast cancer treatment and research, it appears that a bone density drug called Zometa may help women strengthen their bone density (which is a common problem for us women as we age), but it may also help chemotherapy fight breast cancer. Why would they come to that conclusion, with two seemingly [...]
There is now a pretty conclusive study that shows that there is a definite link between breast cancer likelihood and the taking of supplements medically prescribed for menopause relief for five years or more. The two supplementations I’m speaking of are naturally occurring female hormones that tend to naturally dwindle with age and cause their [...]
We’ve all been reading about how technology combined with genetics-minded science have been coming up with some pretty mind blowing ways to help determine whether a woman is more prone to getting breast cancer at a certain point in her life or not, but there are newer and better ways being developed every day that [...]