Known risk factors such as genetics are sometimes linked to breast cancer. Although you can not avoid them all, but many risk factors can be controlled.

Diet and Lifestyle:

It has been proved now that an inappropriate diet can cause breast cancer.

• Unhealthy eating habits can gain your weight, especially after age 60 or after menopause, and this increases breast cancer risk. What can help control weight and decrease breast cancer risk in this case is increased exercise.

• Although it is not known that whether a low-fat diet will prevent breast cancer, studies reveal that in populations that have a high-fat diet, women are more likely to die of breast cancer than women in populations with low-fat diet.

• Reducing the amount of alcohol may help decrease breast cancer risk.

Raloxifene:

National Cancer Institute conduced a large clinical trial called STAR (the Study of Tamoxifen and Raloxifene) in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico and suggested that for postmenopausal women, raloxifene, which is used to treat osteoporosis, is as effective as tamoxifen with fewer side effects for the prevention of breast cancer.

Tamoxifen:

It is a medicine that blocks the effect of estrogen on normal breast cells as well as on breast cancer cells, lowering breast cancer risk in highly vulnerable women. However, the use of this medicine increases the risk of some other serious diseases such as stroke, endometrial cancer, and blood clots in the lungs and in veins.

Hormones:

The risk for developing breast cancer is affected by the following changes in hormone stimulation:

• The risk of breast cancer may be decreased through breast-feeding. Women who breast-fed several children or who have breast-fed for longer than 12 months appear to be greatly benefited through breast-feeding.

• Hormones change the way cells within the breast grow and divide. The use of hormone replacement therapy increases breast cancer development risk with the greatest risk for those who use a combination of progesterone and estrogen.

• The risk of developing breast cancer may be decreased by having a full-term pregnancy before age 30.

• Beginning menopause after age 55 or beginning menstruation before age 12 can increase breast cancer risk.

Ovary Removing Surgery:

The risk of ovarian cancer is increased with the risk of breast cancer due to genetic mutations. Breast cancer risk is increased by the hormones that are produced by the ovaries. In women with a genetic mutation, removal of the ovaries reduces breast cancer risk.

Breast Removal Surgery:

To women with a strong family history of breast cancer, surgery to remove their breasts is often advised. This is called a prophylactic or preventive mastectomy. About 90% in women with a strong family history of breast cancer the risk of developing breast cancer is reduce through this.