Breast Health & Environment

There has been so much fuss about breast health over the years, particularly because breast cancer is known to be the most common cancer among the female population all over the world.

However, despite early detection techniques and extensive treatment options, death rates due to breast cancer seem to increase as the years progress. Up to now, there is a continuing debate on what experts need to focus more on. Several activist organizations are now throwing the blame at the environment and all the toxins that come with it, as the potential primary cause of breast cancer.

Education on breast health and environment safety measures should go hand in hand because the latter affects the other more than most people realize. Although there have been extensive studies where results pointed out the hazardous effects of several chemicals on breast health, there is still considerable silence on these so-called environmental risks factors.

There should be significant worldwide concern on breast health and environment safety since barely half of breast cancer cases were known to have been caused by known factors like genetics, lifestyle, and reproductive issues. This means that more than half the total of breast cancer cases remains unexplained.

Even if much focus is directed towards finding efficient treatment options for breast cancer patients, this has not really reduced the number of women dying from the disease. Thus, breast health and environment safety advocates should try to pitch in and help come up with reliable preventive measures and better early detection schemes.

The Cancer Control Strategy which is established by the government finally gave its attention to the prevention of cancer in general. It has acknowledged that preventive guidelines should be all-embracing. That is, its grasps are wide, with objectives that include obesity and inactivity, nutrition, alcohol, cigarette and second hand smoke, and carcinogen exposure. However, even with the organization’s goal of achieving health safety and environment hazard prevention, it still does not satisfy half of the breast cancer causes.

Activists and scientists alike have worked hard so hard to expose all the potential environmental dangers evident in most industrialized countries. Several years back, the world was rocked by a revelation about the ill effects of radiation and pesticides on breast health. But such revelation didn’t do much in establishing the actual effect of these environmental elements to breast health.

The World Health Organization revealed the more than 100 carcinogens that are known to be cancer-causing both in humans and animals. However, this finding is mere icing on the cake when one thinks about the actual number of chemicals that can be found in the food we eat, the water we drink, and the air we breathe. Do we all have to know exactly what type of environment we exposed ourselves to in order to be motivated to act on it?

It’s about time that people realize the need to focus more on primary prevention in order to come up with reliable preventive means, rather than think of reactive methods that work only when the breast cancer has struck. Primary prevention means finding the root of the problem so that people wouldn’t have to bother about choosing effective treatments. With prevention, all probable risks factors should be investigated. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be as extensive as it is supposed to be.

Right now, the only accepted risk factor of breast cancer that has something to do with the environment is the ionizing radiation. Studies are continually gathering more evidence to prove the role of around 70,000 synthetic chemicals on breast cancer. But until then, we are all better off taking big step towards better environment health and safety.