Mammograms are an essential part of every women’s periodic doctor checkups, especially once they are over the age of 40,  since they can detect potential spots of breast cancer in their earlier stages, and are better at this than the manual massage/hand method that most women who may not be in a high risk category use up until they are about 40 years old, and sometimes unfortunately older.

Well, not it appears that in certain instances the mammogram, which was once thought only to be a predictor of breast cancer, may also help to predict a stroke before it happens so that preventive measures may be taken by healthcare professionals to head it off or put a woman on certain preventive medications or diet regimen before the stroke occurs.

This is important, especially with the news that strokes in middle aged woman have almost tripled, most likely due to an increase in belly fat, which is a major problem when it comes to heart disease and stroke.  The reason that mammograms have been added to the list as possible “inadvertent” indicators of stroke risk, is that they may accidentally reveal to the person looking at the mammograms that a woman has artery buildup, which is a major concern when it comes to potential stroke risk.

The doctor and technicians need to be aware however, to look for this in order to make a diagnosis or put the woman on a preventive program.  If they can train themselves to look for this as well as any masses indicating potential breast cancer, then we could have another way to head off strokes before they occur.  Strokes occur when blood is cut off from the brain, usually by some sort of blockage in the arteries or vessels that carry blood and oxygen to the brain. 

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Posted in Breast Cancer Prevention by Breast News Girl No Comments Yet