Breast cancer. It’s that month again. The pink month. The month when we are painfully reminded of our own mortality, regardless if you are a man or a woman. The latest (famous) one to join the group of ever growing numbers of members in the breast cancer disease group is Julia Louis-Dreyfus, the funny and incredibly witty person that we've gotten to know as Elaine in Seinfeld and for the last couple of years in the award winning show Veep, where she plays...well, the VEEP (Vice President). So there it is, not even the beautiful, rich and famous are risk free.
Breast cancer really can happen to anyone. Women - and men! But while 1 in 8 women are statistically going to develop breast cancer, only 1 in 1000 men are likely having to battle breast cancer. It is depressing to know this as a women, and especially as a child of a mother with breast cancer, since there seems to be a link in some cases between inheritance and developing the disease. However, the likelihood of inheriting the risk, depends on many factors. The fact is that it is much more common to get breast cancer without ever having had it in the family. So, in other words, there isn’t anything you can do to stop this from happening. Right?
Wrong!
There are lots of actions you can take. The most simple thing you can do is a self-examination, which is the most important part of of early detection. Read up on it here! Make sure to do this regularly so you get to know your breasts and can identify anything that wasn’t there last time you checked.
But there are other things you can do that has more to do with environmental circumstances. For instance, things that have been linked to the development of breast cancer are the use of hormone replacement therapy (HRT), body weight, smoking and alcohol consumption. In other words, don’t smoke, don’t overeat, don’t overdrink, and try to tough it out when menopause comes knocking on your door. It sucks to even think about all the risks out there, but the best thing to do is to educate yourself. Try to put in breast cancer in Google and see what comes up. Millions of pages. Pick a few and read up on breast cancer awareness information to learn what to look out for and how to best take care of yourself.
And for the second best thing you can do? Well, join us and other businesses in the fight against breast cancer during October. For every pink SISU Mouthguard guard sold, we will donate to the National Breast Cancer Foundation, in support of their research. Just think about it! What if your action will have an effect on the ultimate goal - to eradicate breast cancer once and for all?! Together we can help getting there, one pink guard at a time.