What Color Rose Are You?
brought to you byQuizilla

Making Strides

October is Breast Cancer awareness month. Cancer is so prevalent that it's hard pressed to find someone who hasn't had it affect themselves or a loved one. Sometimes it seems cancer is around us too much. CIBC recently had their Run for the Cure marathon in Vancouver where people had the option of wearing a sign that shows who they're running for. It's touches something in you to realize how many people this disease has affected, how many loved ones taken away too soon. But memories persist and this is why we continually strive to find the cure and make medical breakthroughs. We run for loved ones but we also have to live for them.

For woman, of all cancer incidences, 32% are expected to be breast cancer and has the highest rate of incidence in North America. It is the most commonly diagnosed form of cancer among women and the second leading cause of death behind lung cancer. Lifetime probability of getting breast cancer is 1 in 7. Studies done by National Cancer Institute Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results Program shows that non-Hispanic white, Hawaiian, and African women are at the highest risk. Asian/Pacific Islander groups and Hispanic women have the lower risk levels with the lowest among Korean and Vietnamese women. But for anyone who's taken statistics, these are based on population averages and doesn't take into account individual factors such as family history, reproductive history, and lifestyle. The risk increases with age and it can affect _anyone_.

Early Detection is key in breast cancer. Yearly mammograms highly recommended for women age 40 and above. A clinical breast examination should be part of your periodic health exam, every 3 years for women in their 20s and 30s and every year for women 40 and older. As kinky as this sounds, women should know how their breast normally feel. This way they're able to tell if anything is abnormal, or doesn't feel right. Self examination can be done easily, when you're taking a shower for example. Hey, you're naked anyways! But don't panic over every bump. Not everyone's boobs are the perfect globes of beauty you see in pinup girls, and theirs are probably bought anyways. About 9 out of 10 breast lumps are not a sign of cancer. However, 90% of breast cancer are first brought to notice by women themselves or by their partner.

In evolution class, I read a journal article on why breast cancer is more common in North America vs other places such as Africa. They looked at number of pregnancies and lactation period and pinpointed it to hormone levels. North American women have moved away from being labelled the homemaker to establishing career first, family later sort of attitude. As is, women these days usually wait until they're around 30 before giving birth and even then, the average children per household is about 2. In other societies, women give birth constantly and nurse their young for years. Even after their own child is weaned, they will help nurse other babies in the community. So in their lifetime they'll only go through menstruation maybe 10-20 times at the most. Most of us by the time we reach our 20s have already surpassed that rate and we're all too familiar with the hormonal battleground that goes on inside of us, the mood swings and all the other unwanted symptoms. It's this fluctuation of hormones that may contribute to our susceptibility to breast cancer more than our counterparts half a world away.

But in life as well in science, nothing is conclusive. That article made me think that as we're evolving socially, culturally, our bodies can't keep up. Compare the feminist woman nowadays to what it was a century ago and yet our body functions has pretty much remained the same. Evolution after all doesn't happen overnight. It can't always keep up with human progress or even human destruction. Of course that's a whole different arguement right there. Had more thoughts but think I'll finish it another time.