4 common myths about breast cancer

With so much on the Internet about breast cancer, it’s easy to get confused about what’s real and what’s misleading or just plain false.

“I do think that many people have at least a few misconceptions,” said Lara Lyn Bryan-Rest, MD, a radiologist with Cape Cod Healthcare’s Seifer Women’s Health and Imaging Center at Falmouth Hospital.

Here she gives us the reality regarding four common myths about breast cancer.

The myth: I’m not at risk because no one in my family has cancer

The reality: “This is something I hear quite often, probably at least once or twice a month. I think a lot of women feel a false sense of security, knowing that no one in their family has breast cancer. I've had patients who didn't think they needed to even have screening exams because they didn't have a family history of breast cancer. But actually, only about 10 percent of breast cancers occur in women with a genetic risk factor or family predisposition. That means most breast cancers happen in women who don't have a family history of breast cancer.” (Cape Cod Healthcare recommends that women of average risk for developing breast cancer follow the American College of Radiology guidelines and start getting annual mammograms at age 40.)

The myth: Sugar causes breast cancer.

The reality: “That's a mistaking of the truth. All cells in our body use sugar. So yes, cancer cells use sugar, but eating sugar doesn't directly cause cancer. If you totally eliminate sugar from your diet, that doesn't mean that you won't develop breast cancer or any cancer. The sugar itself doesn't cause cancer, but having an unhealthy lifestyle can cause cancer. This kind of ties into the next myth.”

The myth: There’s nothing women can do to reduce the risk of breast cancer.

The reality: “There actually are things you can do to cut your risk, and one of them is having a healthy diet. That’s true not just for breast cancer, but for a variety of other cancers and other health conditions, including heart disease and diabetes. Having a healthy lifestyle includes not eating as many sugars, particularly simple sugars, not eating as much processed food, not eating processed meats, decreasing red meat intake, decreasing alcohol consumption and having a healthy, active lifestyle. Try to meet the exercise recommendation of at least 150 minutes per week of moderate activity. Those are factors that can reduce your risk for breast cancer and many other health conditions.”

The myth: Early detection won't change your prognosis.

The reality: “The whole goal of any of the cancer screening tools is to find cancer early. The earlier we can find breast cancer, the more treatable it is and the less aggressive the therapies can be. If a woman is going to develop a breast cancer, my goal as a breast imager is to find it as small as possible because that means the surgery can be smaller in scale and the associated treatments, like radiation and chemotherapy, can potentially be less aggressive. And, if it's a larger cancer, if the cancer has spread to the lymph node, the sooner we can find it, the greater the chance of cure and the less extensive the treatment needs to be in order to control the disease. The best way is regular annual screening mammography, and that's how you detect breast cancer early.”