So a lot of experts, including Cecil sort of, have said that antiperspirants don’t cause breast cancer. A little more than 10 years ago, I read a study in a medical journal linking breast cancer with stannous flouride, but I’ve yet to see anyone suggesting via email that we shouldn’t drink our flouridated water or brush our teeth with cavity fighting toothpastes. When is someone going to find a more definitive answer to the relatively recent explosion in breast cancer cases? I think what Cecil said about the numbers of menstrual cycles a woman has may increase her risk of breast cancer is certainly plausible, but I don’t know if that fully explains the dramatic increase in the numbers of young women–meaning women under 30 who rarely turned up with breast in the past–who are being diagnosed with breast cancer in recent years. In the early- to mid-1980s, a 20 year old Wilmington Delaware woman asked her doctor to check out a lump in one of her breasts and he sent her away saying it was nothing because 20 year olds “just didn’t get breast cancer”. Unfortunately, this woman was an HMO patient and without her doctor’s approval, she was denied further testing. She subsequently died from complications from untreated breast cancer and her family sued the pants off everyone they could. However, at that time, the incidence of breast cancer in pre-menopausal women, particularly as young as 20 was very low so basically it was a bad judgement call on the doctor’s part made based on his previous experience. Lots of young women have “lumpy” breasts that aren’t necessarily cancerous. Today, at least 15 years later, breast cancer is epidemic amongst women of all ages and it has to be something more than having more periods over one’s lifetime. How many periods could a 20 year old have had even if she started menstruating when she was 10–at least 120, which probably many women have before childbirth without turning up with cancer first.
I think my response question to Cecil is this: is anyone actively studying the long term (or maybe not so long term) affects of all the hormones and chemicals being fed to the poultry and livestock that we eat? Hasn’t there been an increase in antibiotics and hormones distributed to feed animals over the last couple decades? Isn’t it possible that the increase in human breast cancer could be linked to the hormones that Perdue, Tyson, and other mass market poultry producers feed to their chickens to increase the birds’ breast sizes? I’ve personally cut way back on the amount of chicken I eat. Doesn’t this seem like a no brainer or did I already eat too many chemicals and I’m not thinking clearly?
Actually, the odds of getting breast cancer are more like 1 in 250, IF you live to be in your 80s, and by then cancer will be just one thing to be concerned about. The stats from Barry Glasner’s book Culture of Fear.
“Relatively recent explosion in breast cancer cases”? As Cecil said, the rate increased steadily (not explosively) for a while, but’s been steady lately. And those increases are linked to other factors, which Cecil cited, especially the fact that women live longer nowadays, and breast cancer risk greatly increases with age. Calling it an epidemic makes me think someone has been watching too much Oprah.
It’s believed that hormones in meat and milk don’t pass from your GI tract to the bloodstream. Of course, scientists are looking at this, but since there’s not an unexplained rise in breast cancer rates, I don’t expect much development here.
I believe the difference between the 1 in 9 stat and the one used in Culture of Fear is that the 1 in 9 is an overall lifetime risk for those women who live into their 80’s, while the other is an annualized risk.
Maybe 20 is too young and there might have been very little hope for the young woman mentioned above - The moral of the story is to insist the HMO provide services and/or go and see someone outside of the HMO and pay for it.
Just because the HMO refuses the service doesn’t mean it is not needed. “Oh, Dearie, you’re just fine. Come back in 30 years and we’ll talk about it.” Don’t listen to garbage like that, it could cost your life.
Guys get CA of the testicles around that same age.
It’s your body, you get only this one. Don’t mess around because of a $20 doctor appointment for a second opinion or what a $50 mammogram?
Doesn’t do any good to worry about the how, once you think something is different or strange or unusual - get it checked.
Unfortunately it may not be that simple. Mammography is often unhelpful in women of reproductive age (due to the density of the breast tissue), fine needle aspirate of the lump is also a bit hit or miss in terms of providing a diagnosis, that just leasves excision of the mass (usually under GA) but in a young women there may be a number of lumps due to hormone effects and the surgery may become a little mutilating…
According to Cecil’s conclusions - ie: fewer pregnancies and more menstrual cycles (rather than antiperspirant use) leads to increased risk of breast cancer - what then does he make of the following hotly debated question in the medical community? Oral contraceptive pills (OCPs). These induce somewhat of a pregnant-like state and clearly reduce the number of menstrual cycles. So what is the Straight Dope, Cecil? Do OCPs increase or decrease the risk of breast cancer?
RnR
mutilating - ak! That’s a bit strong for what I’ve heard. Now the lump -if picked up on mammogram (or the newest version name of it) can be pin pointed the am of surgery, via another mammography, the surgeon goes into the area in question via a semi circle near the nipple and if you can even find the incision a few months later- well, you have too much experience.
I still say the tough part is being able to ask the right questions and walking out if you don’t like the answers. Not easy for a 20 year old.
Are you driving with your eyes open or are you using The Force? - A. Foley
If you know of any oral contraceptives that reduce the number of menstrual cycles a woman has, let me know!!! Oral contraceptives don’t stop the menstrual cycles from occurring - they regulate the occurrence to an exact four week cycle, and they prevent pregnancies, but they certainly do not stop or reduce the number of cycles. For some women, who would naturally have a cycle slightly longer than 28 days, they could actually increase the number - reverse is true of course for women with a cycle naturally shorter than the 28 - but either of those changes would result in only a slight difference in overall lifetime number.
Katt, what Cecil is refering to when he says menstrual cycles are really ovulatory cycles, and there is indeed evidence that a high number of cycles in a lifetime can be a risk factor for breast and many reproductive system cancers.
Women still have periods when on the pill because (roughly) progesterone is provided during three weeks of the cycle, and then denied for the fourth, inducing a period. However, ovulation is suppresed, with all the related hormonal and bodily changes that go with it.
My brother-in-law’s sister had the same experience with a lump in her breast at 22 as described above – the doc didn’t do anything about it because she was “too young” to have breast cancer. We buried her a few years later.
Having said that, I used to defend medical malpractice cases where the doc had missed the diagnosis, and the information I got from my experts at that time suggested that somebody who got breast cancer in their 20s didn’t have much chance of survival anyway. I often heard that the cut-off was, roughly, menopause: if you got it before then your prognosis was much worse than if you got it after that. I’d be interested to know our on-the-board medical professionals’ opinions or experience with this.
Cecil gave a pretty good answer. There was some irrational comments included in that email about Breast cancer that (I’ve seen a version or two of it) that Cecil didn’t address. One statement was that using antiperpirants stops sweating below the armpits. That is just beyond ridiculous. If so, how come people’s feet are so stinky from sweat??? And if it only stops sweating in the armpits, what is the percent of surface area of the body that toxins are supposedly released from that is affected? Pretty small. Which would indicate not much “toxin release” would be stopped.
Also, it was mentioned in the scaremail that the “chemicals entrance to the body”, presumably the chemicals in antiperpirants, is facilitated due to “imperceptible nicks” in the skin from shaving. This is nonsense. Very few inorganic salts (such as the active ingredients in antiperspirants) or large molecular weight organics (the waxy base common to older style white antiperspirants) will cross the skin/blood or skin/lymph barrier due to the fact that these compounds not capable of crossing the membranes of the skin and blood or lymph vessels to enter the body’s circulatory system. I will also point out that although you can have localized infection in the lymphatic system, it is unlikely that fairly low molecular weight “toxins” would not circulate throughout the entire circulatory system (rather like the fact that toxins inhaled in cigarette smoke end up in the brain and eventually being processed by the liver since they don’t all stay in the lungs and are transported about the body). And, if the toxins are trapped in the underarm lymph nodes, why isn’t this scare about lymphatic cancer, rather than breast cancer?? Obvioiusly, breast cancer is a very emotionally terrifying subject and the author(s) of this little hoax are playing on folks fears by focusing on this particular disease.
This email scare is just another bunch of pseudo-scientific claptrap that someone sent out to scare the gullible and scientifically illiterate in our society (a disturbing proportion of the populace, unfortunately). I combat the inherent chemophobia of email like this when they are sent to me by friends who are not critical thinkers. Henceforth, I can also refer these misguided folks to this web site.
When women develop Breast Cancer before menopause, it tends to be a more aggressive disease. Small primary tumors are often associated with metastases by the time they are diagnosed. A small lump grows into a large lump quickly. Annual screening exams are not adequate screening; monthly self-exams are crucial.
Unfortunately, lumps are difficult to evaluate in younger women. Because the breasts are constantly under the effects of estrogen, they are firmer, denser, and in 25-30% of women lumpy all over. A lump in a young woman is seldom cancer; it is MUCH less likely to be cancer than a lump in a 60 year old woman, for example. Mammograms are of little help because young women’s breasts are much denser, making it harder to pick out a mass. But the consequences of keeping an eye on it, even for a few cycles, can be deadly.
Post-menopausal breast cancer is often (but not always) less agressive. It used to be said that a 70 year-old woman diagnosed with Breast CA was more likely to die with her breast cancer than from it, but lately, docs seem to be backing off from that particular bit of sunshine…
Sue from El Paso
Experience is what you get when you didn’t get what you wanted.
Just to make an adjustment here, Majormd said:" But the consequences of keeping an eye on it, even for a few cycles, can be deadly."
Should go, “But the consequences of not keeping…”
Melin said: “the information I got from
experts at that time suggested that somebody who got breast cancer in their 20s didn’t have much chance of survival anyway.”
Regardless of your survival chances I think you’d be much better off knowing that the lump was cancer or not and deciding if YOU’D like to have treatment or not rather than having a HMO (especially) decide not to spend the $$$ making the diagnosis and having someone other than you and your immediate family deciding whether or not to take the treatment.
If (and I have no idea what the percents are) 20% or less of the 20 year old women survive breast cancer, I’d rather have my girl or wife or friend take the chance that with treatment she’d be one of the surviving minority than not.
Are you driving with your eyes open or are you using The Force? - A. Foley
Oh absolutely, it’s a given that it’s better to know and treat the problem; after all the fatality rate is not 100%, I think, even if it diagnosed that young. From strictly a legal tort perspective, though, these numbers are relevant to determine whether, in the absence of the doctor’s malpractice in failing to diagnose, the patient has been harmed, or whether the likelihood is that it wouldn’t have made much of a difference.
Actually, I’m not sure MajorMD’s comment was a type. If I understand correctly, “keeping an eye on” it means to watch it but not do anything about it, to see if it develops into a problem. With a breast tumor that can be deadly; you wouldn’t want to “keep an eye” on it, you’d want to treat it.
[[If you know of any oral contraceptives that reduce the number of menstrual cycles a woman has, let me know!!! Oral contraceptives don’t stop the menstrual cycles from occurring - they regulate the
occurrence to an exact four week cycle, and they prevent pregnancies, but they certainly do not stop or reduce the number of cycles.]]
As another poster said, oral contraceptives stop ovulation from occuring, which is what reduces the risk of breast cancer. But it is also true that OCPs stop menstruation from occuring, too. You menstruate when you go off them for that week. It appears to be safe to stay on them all month long and never menstruate, too, if you’re comfortable with that.
Jill
I believe contraceptive shots prevent menstruation, as well. One of the regs in one of the other forums mentioned recently that she gets such shots and never has her period as a result.
Would not that be the same case as post-menopausal women taking estrogen-only hormone replacement? The latter is not a good idea as it builds up the endometrial lining too much--the system is designed for monthly flushing, the lining doesn't have much cancer resistance. Build it up too much and you run a risk of cancer developing.
