Inside Prevention

Final weekly roundup: Tips for breast cancer prevention

October has come to an end and so has our tip series for Breast Cancer Awareness Month. But, please remember that these helpful, everyday tips can still be found on the Breast Cancer Fund’s blog. We definitely encourage you to revisit these suggestions, written by Dr. Janet Gray, editor of the Breast Cancer Fund’s 2008 and upcoming 2010 State of the Evidence reports, and to look to the Breast Cancer Fund’s Web site and Facebook page for upcoming healthy living ideas.

Here’s a recap of this week’s tips for prevention:

• Avoid exposures to PAHs, whenever possible –- buy low-emission vehicles, maintain your car and avoid unnecessary exposure to tobacco smoke.
• Include soy and other vegetables in your regular diet, but avoid high-dose supplements of soy derivatives.
• Consult with your medical team to minimize your exposures to radiation –- the longest- and best-established environmental cause of breast cancer.
• Keep toys made with phthalates out of your children’s mouths and hands.
• Avoid use of synthetic hormone replacement therapies (HRT), especially progestin-estrogen combinations.

Taking individual actions toward reducing your everyday exposures to toxic chemicals and radiation is a step in the direction of breast cancer prevention, but stopping this disease before it starts also requires greater accountability by corporations and policymakers to protect our health and the health of our environment. Please continue to join us in important legislative initiatives, such as banning BPA from food and beverage containers, expanding the FDA’s authority to make sure cosmetics are safe, and creating a national health-tracking system to connect disease rates and pollution.

Thank you for taking time throughout October to share these tips with your family and friends. Your help has been a crucial piece in expanding the conversation about breast cancer to include prevention.

Rethink Pink NOW! Saner Solutions to Breast Cancer (Huffington Post)

Blogger/writer Helen Cordes posted an excellent piece on the Huffington Post last week, urging readers to reevaluate our mainstream concepts of breast cancer detection and prevention -- mammography, hormone therapy, diet and exercise -- with links to the Breast Cancer Fund's State of the Evidence report and one of our projects, the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics:

Re-vision Prevention--And We All Win

*Stop using cancer-causers, and tell everyone why. As the leading breast cancer prevention organization Breast Cancer Fund notes, speaking out about prevention is perhaps most important in October, when breast cancer awareness is high. After all, genetic causes account for only 5 to 10% of breast cancers, and while it's unquestionably beneficial to exercise and eat healthy, fitness is no guarantee of escaping breast cancer, which has steadily risen at the same time as the chemical proliferation of the last 40 years.

Read the whole post on the Huffington Post.

Weekly roundup: Tips for breast cancer prevention

We’ve finished another week of everyday tips to help you reduce your exposure to toxic chemicals linked to breast cancer. Thank you again to Dr. Gray and The Daily Green for making this possible. You can access all of the October tips on our Not My Breasts blog and find occasional tips throughout the year, as well as the latest news and conversations about prevention, on our Facebook page.

 1. Cook with stainless steel rather than aluminum and be cautious of aluminum-based deodorants.

2. Recycle cadmium batteries and keep any products containing cadmium away from kids.

3. Choose fish carefully, especially when pregnant, to avoid PCBs and dioxins.

4. Be wary of dry cleaning chemicals –- and look for alternatives to dry cleaning whenever possible. 

 5. Use natural sunscreens that don’t come with chemicals of concern.

With one week of October remaining, please continue helping us make prevention part of the conversation during Breast Cancer Awareness Month by joining our Prevention Matters campaign, where you can write a letter to the editor about prevention or send a message to Congress to support public policies that eliminate the environmental causes of the disease. Also, stay tuned for one more week of tips!

Join the million baby crawl

The babies are coming to D.C. Actually, they're virtual babies, and you can send one to Congress, too.

This spin on the traditional petition is organized by the Safer Chemicals Healthy Families coalition (the Breast Cancer Fund is a member) and Seventh Generation. Together, we're hoping to send a message to Congress that American families need better, more protective laws when it comes to deciding whether chemicals are safe or not.

Learn more and join the million baby crawl.

Weekly roundup: Tips for breast cancer prevention

We took Monday off for the holiday, so we have four tips in this week's roundup of breast cancer prevention tips, courtesy Dr. Janet Gray and the Daily Green. If you missed them on Facebook, find them now, right here!

1. Avoid weed killers -- on your lawn, around the house and in kids' play areas.
2. Use natural pesticides. Chemicals meant to kill bugs can harm us, too.
3. Avoid bleach and chlorine, including bleached paper and personal care products.
4. Use safe cosmetics -- and ditch the toxic chemicals in products from shampoo to lotion to lipgloss. 

We'll be back on Facebook Monday to bring you another week of tips you can use to protect your family and yourself from everyday exposures to chemicals linked to breast cancer.

These are small changes, but they're part of a bigger effort to get toxic chemicals out of our environment -- at home, at school, at work and out in the world. Help us make these tips obsolete for future generations: Ask your elected officials in Congress to sign on to our Prevention Platform for big change and better health for everyone.

Weekly roundup: Tips for breast cancer prevention

This Breast Cancer Awareness Month, the Breast Cancer Fund is putting our own spin on the observance by posting a prevention tip each weekday on our Facebook page, courtesy of Dr. Janet Gray and the Daily Green. They're all designed to reduce your family's exposure to toxic chemicals and radiation that increase breast cancer risk.

In case you missed them, we'll be reposting these tips each Friday here on our blog. So, welcome to our first roundup (with a bonus tip from last Friday):

1. Choose a bisphenol A (BPA)-free water or baby bottle.
2. Drink safe water (surprise, it doesn't come in a plastic bottle).
3. Choose truly "microwave-safe" containers -- no plastic containers or plastic wrap.
4. Avoid canned food -- fresh or frozen taste better, anyway.
5. Check your old foam furniture. Old foam mattresses and furniture can contain PBDEs, flame retardants that may be a breast cancer risk factor.
6. Use nontoxic cleaning supplies. Bonus: no terrible chemical smell.

If you sign on as a fan of the Breast Cancer Fund on Facebook, upcoming tips will show up in your feed every day.

Is prevention a priority for you? Ask your elected officials in Washington to make it a national priority, too: Send them our Prevention Platform.