Breast cancer can be a devastating disease, but most women can take active steps to reduce their risk, say some of the nation's leading breast cancer experts.
Women shouldn't blame themselves for their illness, doctors say, noting that it's usually impossible to pinpoint what caused an individual woman's breast tumor.
But about 25% of all breast cancer cases in women of all ages could be avoided by maintaining a healthy body weight and doing regular physical activity, says internist Anne McTiernan, a researcher with the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle.
"The greatest benefits for breast cancer reduction come from weight control and physical activity together," she says.
Alpa Patel, an American Cancer Society epidemiologist, agrees that these are "modifiable risk factors," along with limiting alcohol consumption.
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It may seem obvious, but being a woman is the main risk factor for developing breast cancer, the cancer society says. Men may also develop it, but the disease is about 100 times more common among women than men. This is likely because men have less of the female hormones estrogen and progesterone, which can promote breast cancer cell growth, the group says.
A woman's risk of developing breast cancer increases as she gets older. About one in eight U.S. women (12%) will develop invasive breast cancer during their lifetime, the cancer society says.
A large part of breast cancer risk is determined by women's lifetime exposure to estrogen, Patel says. Your risk increases if you begin your period early, if you go through menopause late, if you have fewer children or if you have them later in life. Those are considered non-modifiable risk factors, she says.
About 5% to 10% of breast cancer cases are thought to be hereditary, resulting directly from gene defects, called mutations, inherited from a parent, the cancer society says.
A small percentage of women, including Angelina Jolie, "have genes that put them at a very high lifetime risk," Patel says. Jolie opted for a preventative double mastectomy after learning that she carried a mutation in a gene called BRCA1, which gave her an 87% chance of breast cancer.
The most common cause of hereditary breast cancer is an inherited mutation in the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes, the cancer society says. Women with those genes need to be thinking of more intensive ways of reducing their risk, McTiernan says. "They need to be talking to a specialist."
But breast cancer that isn't linked to genes appears to be connected to lifestyle and environment, she says. Her studies show that weight loss and exercising regularly combined have the most impact on improving the biomarkers, including estrogen and insulin, for breast cancer risk.
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