Study: Moderate Drinking Ups Risk of Breast Cancer Return

THURSDAY, Dec. 10, 2009  (Health.com) — Breast cancer survivors who have just a few alcoholic drinks per week are more likely than women who drink little or no alcohol to see their breast cancer return, according to research presented today at an annual meeting of breast cancer specialists.

The study, which followed about 1,900 early-stage breast cancer survivors for eight years, found that women who consumed an average of at least three to four alcoholic drinks in a week had a 34% higher risk of breast cancer recurrence. (One drink equals a 5-ounce glass of wine, a 12-ounce beer, or a 1.5-ounce shot of liquor.)

The increased risk was more pronounced among breast cancer survivors who had gone through menopause and those who were overweight or obese, the study found.

Wine was by far the most common drink among women in the study, followed by liquor and beer, but no one type of alcohol was found to be significantly more or less associated with the risk of recurrence.

In all, there were 349 breast cancer recurrences and 332 deaths during the follow-up period. Alcohol use was not linked to the risk of death from breast cancer, however.

“More research should be done, but there is a growing body of evidence which suggests that women previously diagnosed with breast cancer should speak with their doctor about possibly limiting their consumption of alcohol,” says the lead researcher on the study, Marilyn L. Kwan, PhD, a staff scientist at Kaiser Permanente in Oakland.

Previous research has suggested that alcohol consumption may increase the risk of developing breast cancer in the first place. Kwan's research extends these findings to include the risk of recurrence among women who have already been diagnosed and treated for breast cancer, a population that numbers about 2.5 million in the United States, according to the American Cancer Society.

“Cutting back on alcohol represents a real step that a breast cancer survivor can take to reduce her risk of recurrence,” says Marisa Weiss, MD, the president and founder of the advocacy group Breastcancer.org. “You don’t have to give up alcohol, but use it more carefully and in moderation,” she says.

Limiting alcohol intake can improve the overall health of breast cancer survivors, according to Dr. Weiss, the author of the forthcoming book Living Beyond Breast Cancer. “Alcohol is liquid calories, and being overweight is a risk factor for breast cancer,” she says.  “If you consume a lot of alcohol, you tend to be less physically active and/or smoke. So, for a number of reasons, that one step of cutting back on alcohol does have a number of health benefits."

Exactly how alcohol consumption affects breast cancer risk is not fully understood, says Kwan, although estrogen, which fuels the growth of most types of breast cancer, is likely involved.

“It has been suggested that alcohol could increase the risk of breast cancer by increasing estrogen metabolism and circulating levels of estrogen, thus promoting growth of the tumor,” she says.  “A similar mechanism might be responsible for increasing the risk of breast cancer recurrence.”

Drinking-related weight gain could also play a role, Kwan adds. “Obesity may…promote estrogen production and breast cell proliferation, in addition to the direct effect alcohol can have on estrogen metabolism and levels in the body,” she explains.

The study, which was funded by the National Cancer Institute, was presented at the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium, an annual meeting for oncologists, surgeons, and other breast cancer specialists. The symposium is co-hosted by the American Association for Cancer Research and the Cancer Therapy & Research Center at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio.

View the original article here

Breast Cancer During Pregnancy: What You Need to Know

You may not recognize the name Kerryn McCann, but it's all over the news this week. McCann was an award-winning Australian runner, age 41, who died Monday from breast cancer that spread to her liver and brain. Sadly, about 1.3 million women will be diagnosed with breast cancer worldwide this year, and 465,000 women will die from it—McCann is just one of many. The twist on the story is that she discovered her breast lump while pregnant, and initially she thought it was nothing.

Breasts can do all sorts of strange things during pregnancy: They blow up, they get tender and lumpy, they squirt mysterious substances. For many women, pregnancy boobs are a downright strange experience. When I was pregnant, it was the first time I had a generous bosom, and I poked my boobs every now and then to see if they were real. What I didn't do was check them to make sure they were healthy.

Like McCann, I figured breast changes during pregnancy were normal. And they usually are. Breast cancer during pregnancy is quite rare. In the United States, just 1 in 3,000 pregnant women is diagnosed with breast cancer.

But you still need to be vigilant. That means doing routine breast self-exams and reporting anything suspicious to your doctor immediately. Breast tenderness is normal during pregnancy, but hard lumps are not. It's really important to take action quickly: The average reported delay in reporting a lump or other symptom detected during pregnancy is 5 to 15 months, a factor that may contribute to less promising outcomes.

Have you checked your breasts during pregnancy?If you and your doctor do find an abnormality, there are ways to perform diagnostic tests, such as ultrasound and mammography, without exposing the fetus to radiation. Sometimes babies are induced early (as was the case with Kerryn McCann's baby) so that the mother can start chemotherapy or another treatment as soon as possible.

There are lots of lessons to take away from Kerryn McCann: She was an inspirational athlete and mother of three and, whether you are pregnant or not, her story is a call to check your breasts—now.

Read Anne's previous posts:
How Blogging Is Good for Your Breasts
Good News: My Migraines May Be Good for My Breasts
The Survivor Files: Amazing Women Share Their Breast Cancer Journeys

View the original article here

Nearly Half of Breast Cancer Survivors Have Lingering Pain

TUESDAY, Nov. 10, 2009 (Health.com) — Almost half of women who have breast cancer surgery still have pain or numbness two to three years later, according to a new study. Women younger than 40 who receive lumpectomies are at the greatest risk.

In general, women are most likely to have pain or a loss of sensation in the breast region, followed by the armpit, the arm, and their sides. However, 40% of women with lingering symptoms have pain in parts of the body not affected by treatment, according to a report in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

“This is a very well-done study by very well-respected surgeons in Denmark,” says Allen Burton, MD, a professor and the chair of the department of pain medicine in the division of anesthesiology and critical care at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, in Houston.

“This is a known phenomenon,” says Dr. Burton, who wasn’t involved in the study. “These women have pain and huge numb patches in their chest, underarm, down their arm, and in their back that never feels normal again.”

None of the women in the study had reconstructive breast surgery, which is commonplace in the United States. “It would be interesting to see if that changes the outcome,” Dr. Burton says. “Would they have more pain? Less pain? Different kinds of pain?”

In the study of 3,754 breast cancer survivors ages 18 to 70, 47% had pain in one or more area, and 58% reported problems in the treated breast, including burning and a loss of sensation for one to three years after their surgery. Overall, 13% of women with lingering problems said their pain was severe, 39% said it was moderate, and 48% reported light pain. And 76% of patients with severe pain said they ached every day.

Women at the greatest risk for chronic pain were ages 18 to 39 and had undergone breast-conserving surgery, or lumpectomy, in which doctors remove only the tumor and some surrounding tissue. Other risk factors for persistent pain included radiation therapy, which is directed at the breast area to destroy any remaining cancer cells after surgery.

View the original article here

Products That May Reduce Your Risk of Breast Cancer

There is no proven link between breast cancer and household products, whether they be soap or water bottles. But many consumers, activists, and experts are concerned that a variety of goods contain hormone disruptors, chemicals that when absorbed into the body can mimic or interfere with hormones such as estrogen. Some researchers believe that chemicals with estrogenic characteristics can cause normal breast cells to divide.

"Each time they divide, they have the risk of copying DNA incorrectly and creating mutations in key genes, which may lead to increased breast cancer risk," says Suzanne Snedeker, PhD, the associate director for translational research for the Program on Breast Cancer and Environmental Risk Factors at Cornell University. Chemicals that mimic estrogen might also enable an existing breast tumor to keep growing, because most tumors depend on estrogen to grow.

Individual products contain only small amounts of these questionable chemicals, if they do at all. But there is growing concern that the ubiquity of such agents in cosmetics, household products, and certain plastics, may have a cumulative estrogenic effect. "We are not saying if you use a certain product with estrogenic ingredients it will cause breast cancer," Snedeker says. "But the science suggests your risk may be reduced if you avoid these ingredients." Here are a few ways to play it safe.

View the slideshow

View the original article here

Breast Cancer Risk and Estrogen Alternatives

Taking estrogen may increase a woman's risk of getting breast cancer.Getting relief from menopause symptoms doesn’t need to mean estrogen-only treatments or combined hormone therapy (HT), which may increase your risk of breast cancer. If you can, consider nondrug remedies first, says JoAnn Manson, MD, a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and the author of Hot Flashes, Hormones & Your Health.

Dr. Manson has several suggestions for managing hot flashes and night sweats:

Wear layered clothing.Lower the thermostat.Use portable fans.Avoid dietary triggers such as caffeine, spicy foods, and alcohol.Avoid tobacco.Increase your intake of soy-based foods.Consider trying the herb black cohosh.A low dose of a selective serotonin-reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) or the antiseizure medication gabapentin may also be useful, according to Kala Visvanathan, MBBS, assistant professor of epidemiology and oncology at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, in Baltimore. Alternative Therapy for Side EffectsMore than 80% of breast cancer patients have tried complementary therapies.  Read more"If a woman has only vaginal dryness and discomfort with intercourse and no other symptoms, she can use a topical estrogen or a vaginal estrogen ring, which have a much lower absorption of estrogen," adds Dr. Manson, who notes that relaxation and breathing techniques have worked for some women as well. "I would encourage women to try lifestyle modifications before going with estrogen, especially if they have mild symptoms," she says.

Dr. Visvanathan agrees: "You definitely want to try simple things first, then go to [HT] if you need to. It used to be that hormones were the first thing you tried, but the paradigm is changing because we’ve determined the long-term breast cancer and cardiovascular risk associated with HT, and because the benefits of HT have been shown to be less effective than previously thought. Women with modest menopausal symptoms can often treat their symptoms effectively with nonmedical therapies."

Have you tried estrogen alternatives for hot flashes?If you end up needing estrogen or combination HT, though, and you want to keep your breast cancer risk low while still keeping menopause symptoms in check, ask your doctor about transdermal patches, gels, and sprays, which deliver low doses of estrogen through the skin and may have fewer risks than pills. "Transdermal estrogen may be less likely to cause blood clots and gallbladder disease," Dr. Manson explains. "And lower doses may be less likely to increase the risk of breast cancer or other cancers."

The bottom line: Consider alternative approaches to see if one or several together can control your menopause symptoms before turning to oral estrogen or combination HT.

View the original article here

Can Twitter and Facebook Help Fight Breast Cancer?

Twitter and other social media sites are often perceived as the ultimate navel-gazing tools. Seemingly a narcissist’s dream, many think that Facebook status updates and the 140-character Twitter messages (known as “tweets”) are really just boring play-by-plays of daily life—I had granola for breakfast! I’m stuck in traffic!

But Laurie Brosius, 31, isn’t buying it. Brosius, a business analyst in Dallas, used Twitter to raise $6,000 for a walk for breast cancer research in 2008. “Fifty percent of that came from online strangers,” she says. She was able to reach those people in part because her Twitter followers re-tweeted her messages.

In 2004, Brosius started blogging about her upcoming wedding. But after she married, she felt a key person was missing from the happy picture—her husband’s mother, who had died of breast cancer at age 48 when her husband was 20 years old. “I felt like I missed out on having her in my life,” says Brosius. “I felt cheated.”

She wanted to raise money for breast cancer research, so she participated in a three-day walk and fund-raiser, but felt she could do more. She had used Twitter to raise a small sum for that first walk, but for the second walk she relied mainly on tweets to direct people to the donation website.

(Anyone can see breast cancer–related tweets by typing #breastcancer into Twitter’s search field.)

Brosius still blogs and says that breast cancer organizations’ websites are great places to donate. However, Brosius says, they only reach a specific crowd—those already interested in the topic.

“[Social media sites] are reaching people who might not be specifically looking for that kind of information,” she explains. “They’re reaching everyone.”

View the original article here

Drugs Help Prevent Breast Cancer but Pose Risks Too

THURSDAY, Sept. 17, 2009 (Health.com) — Women at high risk of breast cancer can often lower that risk by taking medication, including drugs like tamoxifen or the osteoporosis drug raloxifene (Evista).

Now, a new analysis suggests that women and their doctors need to weigh the dangers of the drugs’ side effects—which can include blood clots, cataracts, and cancer of the uterine lining—against the benefits of breast cancer prevention.

More about metastatic breast cancerThe analysis, funded by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Service’s Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, was published in the September 15 issue of Annals of Internal Medicine.

However, the bigger problem may be that not enough women who are candidates for the drugs are actually taking them. About 2% of U.S. women are at high risk for breast cancer, but many don’t take tamoxifen or raloxifene, according to Christy Russell, MD, an American Cancer Society spokesperson who chairs the organization’s breast cancer advisory committee.

“That’s extremely unfortunate, because we have 200,000 new cases of invasive breast cancer every year and we could potentially reduce that number by half using drugs that are already approved by the [Food and Drug Administration] for this specific purpose,” she says. Dr. Russell says the drugs are underused due to a lack of education among both patients and physicians as to their safety and effectiveness.

“As a culture, it’s a very hard sell to convince us to take drugs for a disease we don’t already have,” she adds.

View the original article here

Study: Soy May Benefit Breast Cancer Survivors

TUESDAY, December 8, 2009 (Health.com) — Women with breast cancer who eat more soy are less likely to die or have a recurrence of cancer than women who eat few or no soy products, according to a new study.

In the past, physicians have often warned breast cancer patients not to eat soy. The new research represents "a complete turnaround" from the previous understanding about the link between soy consumption and breast cancer, says Sally Scroggs, a registered dietician and senior health education specialist at M.D. Anderson's Cancer Prevention Center in Houston.

"We have gone from saying, 'No soy for breast cancer survivors' to, 'It's not going to hurt,'" Scroggs says. "Now it looks like we can say, 'It may help.'"

The study followed more than 5,000 women in China who had undergone a mastectomy for about four years. The women who consumed the most soy protein (about 15 grams or more a day) had a 29% lower risk of dying and a 32% decreased risk of breast cancer recurrence compared to the women who consumed less than about 5 grams of soy protein a day, according to the study, which appears in the December 9 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association. The National Cancer Institute and the U.S. Department of Defense's Breast Cancer Research Program funded the study.

Women who ate between 9.5 and 15 grams of soy protein saw nearly the same decrease in risk as the women who ate more than 15 grams. In fact, the researchers found no additional benefits to eating more than 11 grams of soy protein a day. (An 8-ounce glass of soy milk and a cup of shelled edamame contain about 7 and 14 grams of soy protein, respectively.)

In all, 534 women had a breast cancer recurrence or died from breast cancer during the study period.

Soy foods—such as milk, tofu, and edamame—are rich in naturally occurring estrogens (especially isoflavones) that can mimic the effects of estrogen in the female body. Because the most common types of breast cancer depend on estrogen to grow, experts once feared that soy isoflavones could stimulate the estrogen receptors in breast-cancer cells, even though the estrogens in soy are much weaker than those produced by the body.

The current study suggests the exact opposite: Soy may actually reduce the amount of estrogen that's available to the body.

"Soy isoflavones may compete with estrogens produced by the body. Soy isoflavones may also reduce the body's production of estrogen, and increase clearance of these hormones from the circulation—all of which together reduce the overall amount of estrogen in the body," says the lead author of the study, Xiao Ou Shu, MD, PhD, a cancer epidemiologist at the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center of Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tenn.

Dr. Shu says, however, that factors beyond estrogen may be at work. Other components of soy foods, such as folate, protein, calcium, or fiber (or some combination thereof) may also be responsible for the health benefits reported in the study, she says.

View the original article here

Breast Cancer During Pregnancy: What You Need to Know

You may not recognize the name Kerryn McCann, but it's all over the news this week. McCann was an award-winning Australian runner, age 41, who died Monday from breast cancer that spread to her liver and brain. Sadly, about 1.3 million women will be diagnosed with breast cancer worldwide this year, and 465,000 women will die from it—McCann is just one of many. The twist on the story is that she discovered her breast lump while pregnant, and initially she thought it was nothing.

Breasts can do all sorts of strange things during pregnancy: They blow up, they get tender and lumpy, they squirt mysterious substances. For many women, pregnancy boobs are a downright strange experience. When I was pregnant, it was the first time I had a generous bosom, and I poked my boobs every now and then to see if they were real. What I didn't do was check them to make sure they were healthy.

Like McCann, I figured breast changes during pregnancy were normal. And they usually are. Breast cancer during pregnancy is quite rare. In the United States, just 1 in 3,000 pregnant women is diagnosed with breast cancer.

But you still need to be vigilant. That means doing routine breast self-exams and reporting anything suspicious to your doctor immediately. Breast tenderness is normal during pregnancy, but hard lumps are not. It's really important to take action quickly: The average reported delay in reporting a lump or other symptom detected during pregnancy is 5 to 15 months, a factor that may contribute to less promising outcomes.

Have you checked your breasts during pregnancy?If you and your doctor do find an abnormality, there are ways to perform diagnostic tests, such as ultrasound and mammography, without exposing the fetus to radiation. Sometimes babies are induced early (as was the case with Kerryn McCann's baby) so that the mother can start chemotherapy or another treatment as soon as possible.

There are lots of lessons to take away from Kerryn McCann: She was an inspirational athlete and mother of three and, whether you are pregnant or not, her story is a call to check your breasts—now.

Read Anne's previous posts:
How Blogging Is Good for Your Breasts
Good News: My Migraines May Be Good for My Breasts
The Survivor Files: Amazing Women Share Their Breast Cancer Journeys

View the original article here

Estrogen and Your Breast Cancer Risk

Taking estrogen may increase a woman's risk of getting breast cancer.Estrogen is probably the hardest-working hormone in a woman’s body, but it also has a dark side: Research has determined that estrogen often plays a key role in the development of breast cancer, especially after a woman reaches menopause. How? The estrogen in a woman’s body seems to raise breast cancer risk by encouraging the growth of breast tissue, which can speed up an existing tumor’s growth. Here's what you need to know.

• Combination hormone therapy (HT): If you’re considering taking estrogen and progestin (a synthetic form of the hormone progesterone) to give you relief from annoying menopause symptoms like hot flashes and night sweats, be sure to limit the time you’re on the drugs. That’s because over time your breast cancer risk climbs, says JoAnn Manson, MD, professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and author of Hot Flashes, Hormones & Your Health.

"In the Women’s Health Initiative (WHI) trial, when women got seven years of estrogen alone, there was no increased risk of breast cancer, but after four to five years on combined hormone therapy, the risk emerges," she says. In fact, over time, estrogen plus progestin can raise a woman’s risk for breast cancer by 24%; even if you take estrogen on its own for more than 10 to 15 years, your risk may still go up.

Dr. Manson was a coauthor on a March 2008 study in the Journal of the American Medical Association that followed up on the WHI trial. It showed that even after the women stopped taking combination HT, their breast cancer risk remained elevated. "The risk of breast cancer does decline after stopping hormone therapy," she stresses, "but if a tumor has formed while a woman is on hormones it’s very likely to come to light even after she stops hormones, so there is some residual risk. Stopping drug therapy doesn’t mean a tumor evaporates, but the risk gradually declines."

• HT and early diagnosis of breast cancer: If you have no family history of the disease, you’ve probably been encouraged to get your first mammogram by age 40 and every one to two years after that to help ensure that any tumor is caught early, when it’s most treatable. That’s good advice, but taking HT may complicate things. "Estrogen-and-progestin HT can lead to increased mammographic density"—denser breast tissue—"that can obscure breast tumors and delay diagnosis," says Dr. Manson. Denser breasts are believed to be an independent risk factor for breast cancer, but they also make it harder to accurately read a mammogram and that "can lead to abnormal mammograms that may require extensive follow-up and anxiety about repeat testing and even unnecessary biopsies," Dr. Manson adds.

• HT and risk for benign breast disease: In April 2008, the Journal of the National Cancer Institute found that postmenopausal women who’d taken estrogen on its own doubled their risk of a noncancerous type of breast disease, but one that’s associated with a higher risk of breast cancer. A September 2008 study led by the same author, Thomas E. Rohan, MD, PhD, an epidemiologist at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, in New York City, found similarly disturbing evidence in a study of women taking estrogen and progestin: Combined HT raised a woman’s risk of benign breast disease by 74%.

View the original article here

Breast Cancer Risk and Estrogen Alternatives

Taking estrogen may increase a woman's risk of getting breast cancer.Getting relief from menopause symptoms doesn’t need to mean estrogen-only treatments or combined hormone therapy (HT), which may increase your risk of breast cancer. If you can, consider nondrug remedies first, says JoAnn Manson, MD, a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and the author of Hot Flashes, Hormones & Your Health.

Dr. Manson has several suggestions for managing hot flashes and night sweats:

Wear layered clothing.Lower the thermostat.Use portable fans.Avoid dietary triggers such as caffeine, spicy foods, and alcohol.Avoid tobacco.Increase your intake of soy-based foods.Consider trying the herb black cohosh.A low dose of a selective serotonin-reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) or the antiseizure medication gabapentin may also be useful, according to Kala Visvanathan, MBBS, assistant professor of epidemiology and oncology at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, in Baltimore. Alternative Therapy for Side EffectsMore than 80% of breast cancer patients have tried complementary therapies.  Read more"If a woman has only vaginal dryness and discomfort with intercourse and no other symptoms, she can use a topical estrogen or a vaginal estrogen ring, which have a much lower absorption of estrogen," adds Dr. Manson, who notes that relaxation and breathing techniques have worked for some women as well. "I would encourage women to try lifestyle modifications before going with estrogen, especially if they have mild symptoms," she says.

Dr. Visvanathan agrees: "You definitely want to try simple things first, then go to [HT] if you need to. It used to be that hormones were the first thing you tried, but the paradigm is changing because we’ve determined the long-term breast cancer and cardiovascular risk associated with HT, and because the benefits of HT have been shown to be less effective than previously thought. Women with modest menopausal symptoms can often treat their symptoms effectively with nonmedical therapies."

Have you tried estrogen alternatives for hot flashes?If you end up needing estrogen or combination HT, though, and you want to keep your breast cancer risk low while still keeping menopause symptoms in check, ask your doctor about transdermal patches, gels, and sprays, which deliver low doses of estrogen through the skin and may have fewer risks than pills. "Transdermal estrogen may be less likely to cause blood clots and gallbladder disease," Dr. Manson explains. "And lower doses may be less likely to increase the risk of breast cancer or other cancers."

The bottom line: Consider alternative approaches to see if one or several together can control your menopause symptoms before turning to oral estrogen or combination HT.

View the original article here

Drugs Help Prevent Breast Cancer but Pose Risks Too

THURSDAY, Sept. 17, 2009 (Health.com) — Women at high risk of breast cancer can often lower that risk by taking medication, including drugs like tamoxifen or the osteoporosis drug raloxifene (Evista).

Now, a new analysis suggests that women and their doctors need to weigh the dangers of the drugs’ side effects—which can include blood clots, cataracts, and cancer of the uterine lining—against the benefits of breast cancer prevention.

More about metastatic breast cancerThe analysis, funded by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Service’s Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, was published in the September 15 issue of Annals of Internal Medicine.

However, the bigger problem may be that not enough women who are candidates for the drugs are actually taking them. About 2% of U.S. women are at high risk for breast cancer, but many don’t take tamoxifen or raloxifene, according to Christy Russell, MD, an American Cancer Society spokesperson who chairs the organization’s breast cancer advisory committee.

“That’s extremely unfortunate, because we have 200,000 new cases of invasive breast cancer every year and we could potentially reduce that number by half using drugs that are already approved by the [Food and Drug Administration] for this specific purpose,” she says. Dr. Russell says the drugs are underused due to a lack of education among both patients and physicians as to their safety and effectiveness.

“As a culture, it’s a very hard sell to convince us to take drugs for a disease we don’t already have,” she adds.

View the original article here

Study: Soy May Benefit Breast Cancer Survivors

TUESDAY, December 8, 2009 (Health.com) — Women with breast cancer who eat more soy are less likely to die or have a recurrence of cancer than women who eat few or no soy products, according to a new study.

In the past, physicians have often warned breast cancer patients not to eat soy. The new research represents "a complete turnaround" from the previous understanding about the link between soy consumption and breast cancer, says Sally Scroggs, a registered dietician and senior health education specialist at M.D. Anderson's Cancer Prevention Center in Houston.

"We have gone from saying, 'No soy for breast cancer survivors' to, 'It's not going to hurt,'" Scroggs says. "Now it looks like we can say, 'It may help.'"

The study followed more than 5,000 women in China who had undergone a mastectomy for about four years. The women who consumed the most soy protein (about 15 grams or more a day) had a 29% lower risk of dying and a 32% decreased risk of breast cancer recurrence compared to the women who consumed less than about 5 grams of soy protein a day, according to the study, which appears in the December 9 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association. The National Cancer Institute and the U.S. Department of Defense's Breast Cancer Research Program funded the study.

Women who ate between 9.5 and 15 grams of soy protein saw nearly the same decrease in risk as the women who ate more than 15 grams. In fact, the researchers found no additional benefits to eating more than 11 grams of soy protein a day. (An 8-ounce glass of soy milk and a cup of shelled edamame contain about 7 and 14 grams of soy protein, respectively.)

In all, 534 women had a breast cancer recurrence or died from breast cancer during the study period.

Soy foods—such as milk, tofu, and edamame—are rich in naturally occurring estrogens (especially isoflavones) that can mimic the effects of estrogen in the female body. Because the most common types of breast cancer depend on estrogen to grow, experts once feared that soy isoflavones could stimulate the estrogen receptors in breast-cancer cells, even though the estrogens in soy are much weaker than those produced by the body.

The current study suggests the exact opposite: Soy may actually reduce the amount of estrogen that's available to the body.

"Soy isoflavones may compete with estrogens produced by the body. Soy isoflavones may also reduce the body's production of estrogen, and increase clearance of these hormones from the circulation—all of which together reduce the overall amount of estrogen in the body," says the lead author of the study, Xiao Ou Shu, MD, PhD, a cancer epidemiologist at the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center of Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tenn.

Dr. Shu says, however, that factors beyond estrogen may be at work. Other components of soy foods, such as folate, protein, calcium, or fiber (or some combination thereof) may also be responsible for the health benefits reported in the study, she says.

View the original article here

Products That May Reduce Your Risk of Breast Cancer

There is no proven link between breast cancer and household products, whether they be soap or water bottles. But many consumers, activists, and experts are concerned that a variety of goods contain hormone disruptors, chemicals that when absorbed into the body can mimic or interfere with hormones such as estrogen. Some researchers believe that chemicals with estrogenic characteristics can cause normal breast cells to divide.

"Each time they divide, they have the risk of copying DNA incorrectly and creating mutations in key genes, which may lead to increased breast cancer risk," says Suzanne Snedeker, PhD, the associate director for translational research for the Program on Breast Cancer and Environmental Risk Factors at Cornell University. Chemicals that mimic estrogen might also enable an existing breast tumor to keep growing, because most tumors depend on estrogen to grow.

Individual products contain only small amounts of these questionable chemicals, if they do at all. But there is growing concern that the ubiquity of such agents in cosmetics, household products, and certain plastics, may have a cumulative estrogenic effect. "We are not saying if you use a certain product with estrogenic ingredients it will cause breast cancer," Snedeker says. "But the science suggests your risk may be reduced if you avoid these ingredients." Here are a few ways to play it safe.

View the slideshow

View the original article here

Nearly Half of Breast Cancer Survivors Have Lingering Pain

TUESDAY, Nov. 10, 2009 (Health.com) — Almost half of women who have breast cancer surgery still have pain or numbness two to three years later, according to a new study. Women younger than 40 who receive lumpectomies are at the greatest risk.

In general, women are most likely to have pain or a loss of sensation in the breast region, followed by the armpit, the arm, and their sides. However, 40% of women with lingering symptoms have pain in parts of the body not affected by treatment, according to a report in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

“This is a very well-done study by very well-respected surgeons in Denmark,” says Allen Burton, MD, a professor and the chair of the department of pain medicine in the division of anesthesiology and critical care at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, in Houston.

“This is a known phenomenon,” says Dr. Burton, who wasn’t involved in the study. “These women have pain and huge numb patches in their chest, underarm, down their arm, and in their back that never feels normal again.”

None of the women in the study had reconstructive breast surgery, which is commonplace in the United States. “It would be interesting to see if that changes the outcome,” Dr. Burton says. “Would they have more pain? Less pain? Different kinds of pain?”

In the study of 3,754 breast cancer survivors ages 18 to 70, 47% had pain in one or more area, and 58% reported problems in the treated breast, including burning and a loss of sensation for one to three years after their surgery. Overall, 13% of women with lingering problems said their pain was severe, 39% said it was moderate, and 48% reported light pain. And 76% of patients with severe pain said they ached every day.

Women at the greatest risk for chronic pain were ages 18 to 39 and had undergone breast-conserving surgery, or lumpectomy, in which doctors remove only the tumor and some surrounding tissue. Other risk factors for persistent pain included radiation therapy, which is directed at the breast area to destroy any remaining cancer cells after surgery.

View the original article here

Can Twitter and Facebook Help Fight Breast Cancer?

Twitter and other social media sites are often perceived as the ultimate navel-gazing tools. Seemingly a narcissist’s dream, many think that Facebook status updates and the 140-character Twitter messages (known as “tweets”) are really just boring play-by-plays of daily life—I had granola for breakfast! I’m stuck in traffic!

But Laurie Brosius, 31, isn’t buying it. Brosius, a business analyst in Dallas, used Twitter to raise $6,000 for a walk for breast cancer research in 2008. “Fifty percent of that came from online strangers,” she says. She was able to reach those people in part because her Twitter followers re-tweeted her messages.

In 2004, Brosius started blogging about her upcoming wedding. But after she married, she felt a key person was missing from the happy picture—her husband’s mother, who had died of breast cancer at age 48 when her husband was 20 years old. “I felt like I missed out on having her in my life,” says Brosius. “I felt cheated.”

She wanted to raise money for breast cancer research, so she participated in a three-day walk and fund-raiser, but felt she could do more. She had used Twitter to raise a small sum for that first walk, but for the second walk she relied mainly on tweets to direct people to the donation website.

(Anyone can see breast cancer–related tweets by typing #breastcancer into Twitter’s search field.)

Brosius still blogs and says that breast cancer organizations’ websites are great places to donate. However, Brosius says, they only reach a specific crowd—those already interested in the topic.

“[Social media sites] are reaching people who might not be specifically looking for that kind of information,” she explains. “They’re reaching everyone.”

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Study: Moderate Drinking Ups Risk of Breast Cancer Return

THURSDAY, Dec. 10, 2009  (Health.com) — Breast cancer survivors who have just a few alcoholic drinks per week are more likely than women who drink little or no alcohol to see their breast cancer return, according to research presented today at an annual meeting of breast cancer specialists.

The study, which followed about 1,900 early-stage breast cancer survivors for eight years, found that women who consumed an average of at least three to four alcoholic drinks in a week had a 34% higher risk of breast cancer recurrence. (One drink equals a 5-ounce glass of wine, a 12-ounce beer, or a 1.5-ounce shot of liquor.)

The increased risk was more pronounced among breast cancer survivors who had gone through menopause and those who were overweight or obese, the study found.

Wine was by far the most common drink among women in the study, followed by liquor and beer, but no one type of alcohol was found to be significantly more or less associated with the risk of recurrence.

In all, there were 349 breast cancer recurrences and 332 deaths during the follow-up period. Alcohol use was not linked to the risk of death from breast cancer, however.

“More research should be done, but there is a growing body of evidence which suggests that women previously diagnosed with breast cancer should speak with their doctor about possibly limiting their consumption of alcohol,” says the lead researcher on the study, Marilyn L. Kwan, PhD, a staff scientist at Kaiser Permanente in Oakland.

Previous research has suggested that alcohol consumption may increase the risk of developing breast cancer in the first place. Kwan's research extends these findings to include the risk of recurrence among women who have already been diagnosed and treated for breast cancer, a population that numbers about 2.5 million in the United States, according to the American Cancer Society.

“Cutting back on alcohol represents a real step that a breast cancer survivor can take to reduce her risk of recurrence,” says Marisa Weiss, MD, the president and founder of the advocacy group Breastcancer.org. “You don’t have to give up alcohol, but use it more carefully and in moderation,” she says.

Limiting alcohol intake can improve the overall health of breast cancer survivors, according to Dr. Weiss, the author of the forthcoming book Living Beyond Breast Cancer. “Alcohol is liquid calories, and being overweight is a risk factor for breast cancer,” she says.  “If you consume a lot of alcohol, you tend to be less physically active and/or smoke. So, for a number of reasons, that one step of cutting back on alcohol does have a number of health benefits."

Exactly how alcohol consumption affects breast cancer risk is not fully understood, says Kwan, although estrogen, which fuels the growth of most types of breast cancer, is likely involved.

“It has been suggested that alcohol could increase the risk of breast cancer by increasing estrogen metabolism and circulating levels of estrogen, thus promoting growth of the tumor,” she says.  “A similar mechanism might be responsible for increasing the risk of breast cancer recurrence.”

Drinking-related weight gain could also play a role, Kwan adds. “Obesity may…promote estrogen production and breast cell proliferation, in addition to the direct effect alcohol can have on estrogen metabolism and levels in the body,” she explains.

The study, which was funded by the National Cancer Institute, was presented at the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium, an annual meeting for oncologists, surgeons, and other breast cancer specialists. The symposium is co-hosted by the American Association for Cancer Research and the Cancer Therapy & Research Center at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio.

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