Nicotine speeds the growth of breast tumors and aids the cancer's spread to other parts of the body, a recent study has found.

A large body of previous research on nicotine has implicated the well-known tobacco component in helping to cause a wide variety of cancers, including those of the lungs, head, neck and prostate gland. But this study, published in Cancer Research, is the first to be done on the nicotine-breast cancer connection. (Read more about Nicotine Found to Accelerate Breast Cancer)

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Most of the news we hear about breast cancer deals with addressing the disease after it's already been diagnosed. The best treatment for any disease, is through prevention. Here are 10 ways to lower your breast cancer risk.

1. Exercise and be consistant about it. Moderate physical activity, like brisk walking, 3 times a week can reduce a young woman's risk of developing breast cancer by 33%, and the risk of breast cancer after menopause by 26%.

2. If you smoke, quit now. The sooner, the better. (Read more about 10 Ways to Lower Your Risk of Breast Cancer)

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Some good news in the battle against cancer: recent findings in a report published in the latest issue of Cancer shows cancer death rates dropped steadily on average 2.1 percent per year from 2002 through 2004, nearly twice the annual decrease of 1.1 percent per year from 1993 through 2002. (Read more about Cancer Death Rate Declining)

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“I was afraid that I wouldn’t be able to see my children grow up and my grandchild grow, you get this really scary feeling inside,” says Rosamond Stallings. When 45 year old Rosamond Stallings was diagnosed with breast cancer 2 years ago, doctors urged her to immediately have a mastectomy. “They found like six malignant tumors,” says Rosamond.
Recent studies have shown that 30 percent or more of breast cancer patients fail to receive complete treatment, and that African American women are as much as 10 percent less likely than white women to receive optimal therapy. But now, supported by a $10 million grant from the Department of Defense, a study, led by a team of doctors at Columbia University Medical Center, will look at possible reasons for the disparity. (Read more about African American Women and Breast Cancer)

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Women living in urban areas have denser breasts, which make them more susceptible to developing breast cancer, according to a recent study presented at a meeting of the Radiological Society of North America. Women's breast tissue may be fatty or glandular or a mixture of both. Women who have more glandular breasts show denser tissue on a mammogram. These women have been found to have nearly four times the risk of developing breast cancer compared to women with fatty breasts. To determine if there was a situational factor that attributed to the breast density, researchers analyzed digital mammograms of over 900 women from urban, suburban, and rural areas. (Read more about City Women Are More Likely To Develop Breast Cancer)

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A recent report from the Institute of Medicine addresses the toll that cancer therapies have on patients' mental and emotional state that may potentially cause other health problems. Cancer treatments save and prolong many people's lives; however, care that focuses solely on eradicating tumors without acknowledging a patient's well-being can increase the patient's suffering and affect their ability to follow through on treatment. The report proposes that oncology care providers use a new standard of care that accomplishes three goals: screen patients for distress and other problems, coordinate and connect patients with health care or service providers who can treat these problems, and periodically re-evaluate patients to determine if patient care needs adjustment. (Read more about Cancer Patients In Need of Psychological and Social Support)

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A recent study by Kaiser Permanente Researchers has found that the effects of alcohol on breast cancer are the same, regardless of whether a woman drinks wine, beer, or liquor. The ethyl alcohol found in those drinks and the quantity consumed are the factors that weigh heavily on breast cancer risk. Researchers believe the increased risk from three or more drinks a day is similar to the increased breast cancer risk from smoking a pack of cigarettes a day or more. They claim that "Population studies have consistently linked drinking alcohol to an increased risk of female breast cancer, but until now there has been little data, most of it conflicting, about an independant role played by the choice of beverage type." (Read more about All Types of Alcohol Linked to Breast Cancer Risk)

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Women who have BRCA breast cancer genetic mutations are just as likely to survive as other women who get breast cancer, according to a new study published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Women with BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes are more likely to get breast cancer. It was also widely believed that those with hereditary breast cancer from BRCA1 mutations had worse outcomes. This new study, tracked two groups of women with breast cancer in Israel, one with the inherited BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations, and the other without. The researchers found no significant difference in death rates between the two groups. Between 5 and 10 percent of all breast cancers are hereditary and are more likely to occur with women from certain ethnic backgrounds like people of Ashkenazi (central or eastern European) Jewish heritage [one reason why the study was done in Israel]. (Read more about BRCA Breast Cancer Genes)

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College professor, 61 year old Karin Wexler, wasted no time when she first felt a lump on her breast three years ago. “Within 3 minutes, I had called my doctor and went for a mammogram and sonogram right away and nothing showed up on the mammogram even though the radiologist could feel it herself with her hand, we couldn’t pick it up on the mammogram,” says Karin.

Doctors performed a lumpectomy and discovered that Karin did indeed have stage one breast cancer. For many women like Karin, mammography, while still the first-line screening tool for breast cancer, can miss abnormalities. Dense tissue and cancers can have a similar appearance on mammography, making it difficult to identify cancers…this can result in false negative mammograms and in addition lead to unnecessary biopsies.

But now, thanks to breast specific gamma imaging, cancerous tissue can be identified that may go undetected by mammography. “This is different than traditional breast imaging like mammography or sonography or even MRI in that it is not anatomical imaging but it is more what we call functional imaging so in other words we are picking up areas where the cells are beginning to be more active like cancer cells can and allows us to identify these cells at a much earlier stage before we might be able to see an abnormality on a mammogram a sonogram or even an MRI so it is very, very exciting,” says Dr. Sheldon Marc Feldman of Beth Israel Medical Center. (Read more about New Breast Cancer Diagnostic)

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There is a disturbing report out tonight that says minority women, who are at the highest risk for having aggressive breast cancer, are simply not getting their mammograms.

Now, we keep hearing study after study showing how there are ethnic disparities in healthcare. But, mammograms are available for most women regardless of socioeconomic status. So, why minority women are still needlessly facing aggressive, advanced breast cancers? (Read more about Minorities and Breast Cancer)

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