GLOBAL BREAST CANCER
Breast cancer is the worst cancer for women throughout the world. One million cases are found each year and about 500,000 patients die each year from the disease. One out of eight Americans will get breast cancer.
A few years ago, only rich white women in North America and Western Europe got cancer. In the next ten years about 70% of all breast cancers will come from developing countries. As the disease is spreading, the detection and treatment is not. We in the states spend $8 billion dollars to diagnose and treat this cancer each year. In the poor countries, there are no mammograms, no film, and no doctors. You just sit and wait to die.
This bad news is a result of good news. Women are living long enough to reach the age at which they are susceptible to breast cancer. Poor nations now have more food; improved sanitation and life expectancies have risen from 50 to 65 years. Western habits have been catchy as they are exposed to fatty foods, obesity and lack of exercise, all risk factors for breast caner.
We have breast cancer awareness runs and marathons and wear pink ribbons. In the developing countries breast cancer is a secret. Women don’t want to talk about their breasts and so they ignore pain and illness. The woman is afraid her mate may leave her. Some think it is contagious and they are treated as lepers. They fear no one will want to marry their daughters if they know momma has breast cancer.
Race plays a role. Most of us Americans are of European ancestry and get a cancer that is stimulated by estrogen exposure. That’s why it is a middle age disease here. Since the cancers need estrogen to grow, drugs that block hormone receptors on these cancer cells starve the disease.
Asian and black women even in the U.S. have a greater risk of getting a more aggressive kind of cancer that has no estrogen receptors. These cancers strike 10 years earlier and don’t respond to drugs that block estrogen because the cancer is not fed by estrogen. Asian women have denser breasts and have up to five times the risk for breast cancers, and they don’t show up easily on mammography.
As Asians abandon the low fat diets of tofu, vegetables, beans, fish and soymilk, and start eating in a Western way with candy, desserts, bread, milk and red meat they increase their chances of cancer by 60%.
Fewer children also increase their risks. Pregnancy changes the breast tissue by building antibodies that prevent cells from becoming cancerous. It seems an estrogen holiday once in a while may lower the risk. No longer is there work on the farms and factories where one gets an all day workout. There is less moving done with the shift to offices from the fields. The leaner body mass an active woman has, the healthier diet is likely following.
Money and costs of mammograms is a problem. In the U.S. only 40% get mastectomies because of lumpectomies and early detection. Early detection results in hope and cure. In developing countries, it’s a lot cheaper to do a one-time mastectomy and solve he problem. Be glad you live in America, where health care saves lives, wear your pink ribbons proudly, and participate in the runs and breast awareness walks.
Source; Time, Oct 15, 2007
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