Many of the most important risk factors for breast cancer are beyond our control, such as sex, age and family history from blood relatives. However, there are some risk factors that you can control.

Modifiable Risk Factors

These risk factors can be controlled to lower your chance of developing a breast cancer. These include lifestyle factors such as obesity, unhealthy diet, lack of physical exercise, use of tobacco and alcohol. Women who are obese have a higher risk of developing breast cancer. Eating a healthy diet and getting more exercise to maintain the ideal body mass index could help to lower the risk of developing breast cancer. In addition, research evidence shows that even those with ideal body weight could further lower the risk of breast cancer by engaging in regular physical exercise. Alcohol consumption and using tobacco increases the breast cancer risk.

Modifiable lifestyle factors such as body weight, physical activity, alcohol consumption and smoking should be addressed in the context of an overall wellness strategy

Non-modifiable risk factors:

As discussed before, these include age, sex and family history. Unfortunately, we do not have a control over these risk factors.