by Tracey Watkins

Created on: August 01, 2008

BREAST CANCER is still an ongoing illness .As the years are passing we seem to have not yet won the battle totally towards conquering the disease as it's now the 2nd most common cause of cancers after lung cancer and the 5th most deadliest of cancers. But the most common in woman, around 8,000 are under the age of fifty. An average of 44,000 people are diagnosed with breast cancer each year, 300 of these people are men. Although this is far less common. Scientists are still unsure what the true cause is of this deadly disease is, although they have come up with some possible factors. Through research some possible factors are currently being studied, like our daily diets, physical activity, even the environment we live in, in the 21 century. With our modern day of live are we doing more harm to ourselves by having technology as advanced as it is?

Although some positive factors that they publish suggest that if you have a very strong family history, there may be one or several faulty gene in the family that's increases your risk. Scientists can test 2 of them, BRCA 1 & BRCA 2. Your risk of getting breast cancer in your lifetime if you carry either of these breast cancer gene faults could be as much as 85%. Half of all woman 50% who carry a faulty breast cancer gene will have developed breast cancer by the time they are 50yr old. But obviously this can vary to even 80% depending on the family. But again I must stress to you that its important to know that even with these risk factors, some woman do go on to not have breast cancer.
Researchers are slowly beginning to understand how certain changes in D.N.A can cause normal breast cells to become cancerous. As hormones seem to be playing a part in the risk factor chain of many cases of breast cancer, but how? They are not quite sure.
Research also suggests that "between 10% & 70%" cancers may be preventable by changing our diets. One of the clue's that they are looking at the rates of the disease in Japanese and American woman. As Japanese have a low rate of the disease, but they suggest that when a Japanese woman immigrates to America to live their breast cancer risk goes up. So this suggests that the difference in our lifestyles or the environment could be the key. Obviously this would be confusing to do as everyone eats differently and cultures are different.
Other research looks at the possibilities of being overweight or obese. They have found a definite link between alcohol intake and breast cancer. Although

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