27. Women with high breast density have been found to have a four to six times greater risk of developing breast cancer than women with lower breast density.
28. Currently, a woman has a 12,1% chance of being diagnosed with breast cancer. That is, 1 out of 8 women is diagnosed with cancer. In the 1970s, 1 in 11 women were diagnosed. The spread of cancer is most likely due to increased life expectancy, as well as changes in reproductive patterns, longer menopauses, and increased obesity.
29. The most common type of breast cancer (70% of all diseases) occurs in the thoracic ducts and is known as ductal carcinoma. A less common type of breast cancer (15%) is known as lobular carcinoma. Even rarer cancers include medullary carcinoma, Paget’s disease, tubular carcinoma, inflammatory breast cancer, and phyllode tumors.
30. Flight attendants and nurses who work night shifts have a higher risk of developing breast cancer. The International Agency for Research on Cancer recently concluded that shift work, especially at night, is carcinogenic to humans.
31. In 1882, the father of American surgery, William Steward Halsted (1852-1922), introduced the first radical mastectomy, in which the breast tissue underlying the chest muscle and the lymph nodes are removed. Until the mid-70s, 90% of women with breast cancer were treated with this procedure.
32. About 1,7 million cases of breast cancer are diagnosed each year worldwide. About 75% occurs in women over 50 years of age.
33. Pomegranates can prevent breast cancer. Chemicals called ellagitanins block the production of estrogen, which can fuel some types of breast cancer.
34. Studies show that those with breast cancer and diabetes are almost 50% more likely to die than those without diabetes.
35. Breastfeeding survivors who received treatment prior to 1984 have much higher death rates due to heart disease.
36. There is a strong correlation between weight gain and breast cancer, especially in those who gained weight during adolescence or after menopause. The composition of body fat also increases the risk.
37. On average, it takes 100 days or more for a cancer cell to double. It takes about 10 years for the cells to reach a size that can actually be felt.
38. Breast cancer was one of the first types of cancer to be described by ancient physicians. For example, doctors in ancient Egypt described breast cancer over 3500 years ago. One surgeon described “bulging” tumors.
39. In 400 BC. Hippocrates describes breast cancer as a humoral disease caused by black bile or melancholy. He named the cancer karkino, which means “crab” or “cancer” because the tumors seemed to have crab-like claws.
40. To refute the theory that breast cancer is caused by an imbalance of four bodily fluids, namely excess bile, the French physician Jean Astruc (1684-1766) cooked a piece of breast cancer tissue and a piece of beef, and then his colleagues and he ate them both. He proved that a breast cancer tumor does not contain bile or acid.
41. The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition reports a higher risk of breast cancer in women taking multivitamins.
42. Some doctors throughout the history of cancer have suggested that it is caused by several factors, including the lack of sex, which causes reproductive organs such as the breast to atrophy and rot. Other doctors have suggested that “rough sex” blocks the lymphatic system, that depression restricts blood vessels and clogs coagulated blood, and a sedentary lifestyle slows down the movement of body fluids.
43. Jeremy Urban (1914-1991), who practiced a superradical mastectomy in 1949, removed not only the chest and axillary nodes, but also the pectoral muscles and internal breast nodes in one procedure. He stopped doing it in 1963 when he became convinced that the practice worked no better than the less crippling radical mastectomy.
44. October is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month. The first such action took place in October 1985.
45. Research shows that social isolation and stress can increase the rate at which breast cancer tumors grow.
46. Not all lumps found in the breast are malignant, but may be a fibrocystic condition, which is benign.
47. Researchers suggest that left-handed women are more likely to develop breast cancer because they are exposed to higher levels of certain steroid hormones in the uterus.
48. Mammography was first used in 1969 when the first dedicated breastfeeding X-ray machines were developed.
49. After Angelina Jolie revealed that she tested positive for the breast cancer gene (BRCA1), the number of women being tested for breast cancer doubled.
50. One in eight women in the US is diagnosed with breast cancer.
51. There are over 2,8 million breast cancer survivors in the United States.
52. Approximately every 2 minutes, breast cancer is diagnosed, and one woman dies from this disease every 13 minutes.