Nearly everyone knows a friend or relative who has been stricken by breast cancer and who have succumbed to the disease. But there are also now a lot of breast cancer survivor testimonies that you can get from anyone.

Breast cancer remains the most common of cancers affecting women. It kills more women than any other kind, except lung cancer. About 150,000 women in the United States develop breast cancer each year, and 25 percent die of the disease.

Women whose female relatives have had the disease or have a breast cancer survivor in the family are more likely to be victims than women from families in which it is not present. The disease appears to be linked statistically also to women who do not have children before their 30s or who do not have nurse their babies; to women who reach the menopause later than normal; and to women who began menstruation earlier in life than normal.

There is increasing evidence also that ovarian activity may play an important role in the development of breast cancer. Women with ovarian tumors and women who use supplementary estrogen have been shown by some studies to be at increased risk, while the process of having many children and nursing them, which suppresses estrogen hormone activity, is associated with a decreased risk of developing such ailment. However 55 percent of the diagnosed cases are for women who have no known risk factors.

Cancer of the breast may occur as early as the teens, but this is rare. It is generally not found before the age of 30, and the incidence peaks around the time of menopause. Then there is a second period after the age of about 65 when the incidence rises again.

A breast cancer survivor would have a real change in his or her life. Surviving this deadly disease would make them realize about a number of things that they have done with their lives and they would have a second look about their lifestyle and ask why they had had acquired this kind of disease.



Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Charlene_Nuble