It’s that time of year again. Where you’ll see pink ribbons everywhere and all the items you regularly purchase are pink with proceeds going to the Susan G. Komen foundation. October is breast cancer awareness month. Today we’ll discuss how this disease affects the African-American community and the steps we can take to prevent it.
Many African-American women don’t fit the profile of the average American woman who gets breast cancer. For them, putting off the first mammogram until 50 — as recommended by a government task force — could put their life in danger.“One size doesn’t fit all,” says Lovell Jones, director of the Center for Research on Minority health at Houston’s M.D. Anderson Cancer Center. Jones says the guidelines recently put out by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force covered a broad segment of American women based on the data available. “Unfortunately,” he says, “the data on African-Americans, Hispanics and to some extent Asian-Americans is limited.”So while the recommendations may be appropriate for the general population, he says, it could have a deleterious affect on African-American women who appear to have a higher risk of developing very deadly breast cancers at early in life.
In other words, early detection is key for African-American women. We have to check our lovely lady lumps for any bumps. If we don’t, the possible outcome could be fatal…When you look at the death statistics for breast cancer in African-American women and compare them to white women, it’s stunning. Beginning in their 20s, into their 50s, black women are twice as likely to die of breast cancer as white women who have breast cancer. In older black women, cases of breast cancer decline, but the high death rates persist.Overall, breast cancer deaths have been declining for nearly a decade (by 2 percent annually), yet deaths of African-American women have been dropping at a much slower pace. In 2009, an estimated 40,170 women will die from breast cancer. Nearly 6,000 will be African-American women.Dr. Vanessa Sheppard, a behavioral scientist at the Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center at Georgetown University, has been conducting a study to understand the response of African-American women to treatment for breast cancer, so she’s seen this up close.
“We’ve lost eight African-American women,” she says. “That’s a pretty high mortality rate in about 200 women.”
Personally, Sheppard says, she’s lost friends who were 32, 36 and 40 from breast cancer. Studies estimate that 20 to 30 percent of breast cancers in African-American women are triple-negative breast cancers. This means the cancers lack estrogen and progesterone receptors and won’t respond to drugs that work by preventing the hormones from reaching the cancer cells. Triple-negative cancers also are HER-2 negative, another hormone, and therefore don’t respond to any of the treatments known to block the cancer’s growth.
“The breast cancer is more aggressive,” says Sheppard, “The tumors are harder to treat. They’re larger.”
Similar types of aggressive breast cancers have been found in other ethnic groups — including Africans — suggesting perhaps a genetic link. But no one knows exactly why this is happening. And there’s probably no one explanation. There are known risk factors for breast cancer and combinations of risk factors — a family history of the disease, age at which menstruation and menopause start. But scientists have found it difficult to come up with a satisfactory model that predicts breast cancer in black women.
1) Early/Routine Screening
Because black women are at a higher risk of being diagnosed with more aggressive forms of breast cancer early screening is necessary. Nearly one-third of AA breast cancer patients are under the age of 50. By the time you start screening at the recommended age of 40, it may be too late because the cancer is at a later and more advanced stage.
2) Diet
Many studies have been done researching how eating certain foods could greatly reduce your risk for breast cancer. Eating certain foods could lower your chance of cancer by over 60% with proper diet and exercise. Five of these “super foods” are:
Salmon: Taking fish-oil supplements for at least 10 years can shrink your risk of ductal carcinoma, the most common type of breast cancer, according to a study in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention. It’s thought the omega-3 fats in fish oil reduce buy viagra dubai inflammation, which may contribute to breast cancer. But you can skip the supplement aisle, say researchers, and eat about 8 ounces of oily fish (salmon, sardines, tuna) per week.
Olive Oil: When researchers in Barcelona gave rats with breast cancer a diet in which fat came predominantly from extra-virgin olive oil (vs. corn oil), they found the olive oil’s antioxidants and oleic acid (a mono-unsaturated fat) quelled the growth of malignant cells.
Broccoli: Sulforaphane, a compound in broccoli, reduced the number of breast cancer stem cells (which cause cancer spread and recurrence) in mice, according to research from the University of Michigan. Eating broccoli may not deliver enough sulforaphane to achieve the same effect, but to get the most you can, eat your broccoli raw or briefly steam or stir-fry the green florets. (Boiling destroys some of the sulforaphane.)
Parsley: University of Missouri scientists found this herb actually can inhibit cancer-cell growth. Animals given apigenin, a compound abundant in parsley (and in celery), boosted their resistance to developing cancerous tumors. Experts recommend adding a couple pinches of minced fresh parsley to your dishes daily.
Coffee: Drinking about two 12-ounce coffees per day may lower your risk of an aggressive form of breast cancer, says a May 2011 study in Breast Cancer Research. “One possibility is that coffee’s antioxidants protect cells from damage that can lead to cancer,” says study author Jingmei Li, Ph.D. More research is needed, so don’t up your intake based on these figures just yet.
A growing body of research indicates that the levels of hormones produced by the body can be modified by physical activity. While a woman cannot change her age at menarche or menopause, and may not have children or breast feed – all factors which affect the levels of ovarian hormones a woman is exposed to over her lifetime – many researchers believe that she can reduce her exposure to these hormones through exercise.
Ovarian hormones including estrogen and progesterone, for example, are necessary for a woman’s reproductive and overall health, but they also stimulate breast cells to proliferate, which can increase the accumulation of genetic mutations and potentially lead to tumor formation.
“Our theory is that the accumulative number of ovulatory menstrual cycles a woman experiences is predictive of her breast cancer risk,” explains Dr. Leslie Bernstein, professor of cancer etiology at City of Hope Comprehensive Cancer Center.
She and her colleagues have been involved in the California Teachers Study (CTS) since 1995, which enrolled 133,479 current and retired teachers and school administrators in the state of California to prospectively study potential causes of an excess incidence of breast and other cancers observed in this population.Last year the CTS investigators found that the risk of invasive breast cancer was inversely associated with long-term strenuous physical activity – women who averaged more than 5 hours a week of strenuous physical activity between high school and their current age (or age 54 if 55 or older) had a significantly reduced risk compared to women who averaged less than half an hour of strenuous physical activity a week during the same period of life.
Unexpectedly, neither strenuous nor moderate long-term physical activity was associated with reduced risk of estrogen receptor (ER)-positive breast cancer, but women who participated in long-term strenuous physical activity had a 55 percent reduction in risk of ER-negative breast cancer, and women who participated in long-term moderate physical activity had a 47 percent reduction in risk.
So ladies (and gentlemen), let’s take care of ourselves through early screening, a healthy diet, and at least 30 minutes of moderate to strenuous exercise a day. I’m leaving the floor to you all now:
1) Have you or do you know anyone that has fought the cancer battle and won? What was their experience like? How did they overcome the challenges they faced?
2) What other “super foods” do you know that we can add to our diet? Any yummy recipes to share that include these foods?
3) What do you enjoy doing to get in that needed exercise? Walking, running, tennis, swimming, biking, Zumba, P90X, Insanity, Jillian Michael’s 30 Day Shred? Let us know what works for you.
