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Looking after your breasts

By Sarah Clark

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You tend to take your breasts for granted most of the time - unless like some women you're blessed with a larger than average pair, or a set that tend to hurt like hell when you're hormonal. However - it's important to look after your breasts. Breast cancer is one of the most common cancers in women and so the health of your two favourite assets should never be neglected.

According to Cancer Research UK, there are more than 44,600 new cases of breast cancer every single year in the UK¹. It accounts for around one-in-three of all cancer cases in women, and as a woman you have a one-in-nine chance of being affected by breast cancer in your lifetime.

Breast cancer can develop in the milk-producing glands in your breast, or sometimes in the passages or ducts that deliver milk to the nipples. Some breast cancers also spread into surrounding tissue and to other parts of the body.

It's not all bad news though; early detection and better treatments mean that breast cancer death rates in the UK have fallen by a fifth in the last decade.

What's the risk?

Like all cancers, your risk of developing breast cancer depends on many different factors.

Some of the most common risk factors are:

• Age. Breast cancer is rare in women under 30, and the older you are the more likely you are to develop it.
• Menstruation and menopause. If you started your periods at a young age or reached the menopause later you have an increased risk of breast cancer.
• The Pill.The contraceptive pill is said to cause a slightly increased risk, although the elevated risk gradually returns to normal when you stop taking it.
• Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT). Women taking HRT are more likely to develop breast cancer, especially those taking the combined oestrogen/progestogen version. Your risk increases the longer you take HRT, but will reduce back to normal within five years of stopping HRT.
• Bodyweight. Being overweight after the menopause increases the risk of breast cancer due to the way that excess body fat affects your oestrogen levels.
• Alcohol. If you drink alcohol, it increases the risk of breast cancer. The more you drink on a daily basis, the higher your risk becomes.
• Family history. Your risk is increased if one or more of your close relatives (for example, your mother or sister) have been diagnosed with breast cancer, but most women with just one or two affected relatives won't get breast cancer. (Most women with breast cancer don't actually have a family history of it.)

Some factors actually reduce your risk of getting breast cancer, and these are:

• Having children. For some reason, the more children you have, and the younger you are when you have them, the lower your risk of breast cancer is.
• Breastfeeding. If you breastfeed your children, this also reduces the chances of you developing the disease. The longer you breastfeed for the lower the risk.

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