5 Simple Things That Can Cut Your Breast Cancer Risk

There is currently no way to prevent breast cancer but there are ways to reduce your risks:

• Limit yourself to two or three alcoholic drinks a week - even in small amounts of alcohol, is believed to increase the risk of breast cancer.  A recent study showed the link between drinking and breast cancer was especially strong in the hormone-sensitive tumors, which make up 70% of all breast cancer tumors.
• Exercise at least 3 times per week, keeping your heart rate above it's baseline for at least 20 minutes. It's good for your heart and cuts your cancer risk.
• Maintain your body weight, or lose weight if you're overweight. Research shows that being overweight or obese (especially if you're past menopause) increases your risk, especially if you put on the weight as an adult. And a study released in March 2008 by researchers at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston showed that obese and overweight women also had lower breast cancer survival rates and a greater chance of more aggressive disease than average-weight or underweight women.
• Do a monthly breast self-exam. 
• Have a mammogram once a year after 40. Catching a tumor early boosts the chance of survival significantly: The five-year survival rate can be as high as 98% for the earliest-stage localized disease, but hovers around 27% for the distant-stage, or metastatic, disease. Schedule a mammogram.