Why is breast cancer so common?

I read on the Uk cancer site that the incidence of breast cancer went up 6% in the past 10 years. The newly published book “The Screech Owls of Breast cancer” on Amazon says hormones are the main preventible cause. Some discussion should highlight the numbers of younger women getting the disease and ask hard questions about why and if there is any way to stop it happening and increasing. 

Hi Maria,

 

It is quite shocking to me that more and more younger women are being DX with breast cancer. I don’t know the reason for this, but have thoughts about it. There has been talk of hormones getting into the food chain. Fish for example are affected by female hormones getting into the ecosystem, causing the males to become less able to breed. It doesn’t take much imagination to think that this is affecting humans too. I know that a new school of thought means that younger women who have been found to have one of the BRACA genes can be treated with Tamoxifen in the hope that it will prevent them getting BC. My question is, do they  know that these women would get a hormone positive cancer?

 

As for the increase in women of an age to be part of the breast screening program, I have heard a theory that now more non-invasive cancers are being found (DCIS) which are, quite rightly, immediately treated. In the US for example, I heard that 14% of older women who have died through non cancer reasons, have - at their autopsy - been found to have DCIS which had probably been there for years without becoming invasive. The theory states that this is a case of over treatment when it might have taken years - if ever - for a DCIS to need treatment. This too could add to the increase in a BC diagnosis. I don’t know, I’m just stating my own thoughts on things I have read. So I agree that questions do need to be asked. If things carry on this way, it seems to me that eventually ALL women will end up with breast cancer!!