Think of 100 women. Your mom, your daughter, your best friend. Coworkers, bosses, interns. Classmates and neighbors—you’re well past 100.
And the odds say that 12 of those women will someday hear the dreaded words, “You have breast cancer.”
It almost sounds flip to follow that stat with, “There’s an ebook you’ve gotta read”—but there is, and it could help.
Dr. Graham Colditz, the Niess-Gain professor of surgery at Washington University School of Medicine, reviewed decades of research on breast cancer. His co-authors—Dr. Katherine Weilbaecher, a breast cancer oncologist, and medical writer Hank Dart—helped him translate it into clear advice for a lay audience. And now Siteman Cancer Center has made the result, Together—Every Woman’s Guide to Preventing Breast Cancer, available for free download.
You’ll find prevention tips for girls and women of every age, as well as advice to help parents impress the issue on daughters too young to feel their mortality. “Youth and young adulthood are key periods in determining breast cancer risk later in life,” Colditz says.
But even if women only come to health consciousness at midlife, changes then can still reduce their risk of breast cancer by as much as 50 percent. Meanwhile, their new lifestyle will also reduce the risk of other cancers, diabetes, stroke, and osteoporosis. Plus, it will strengthen their heart—and reduce stress on the hearts of all the people who love them.
