Anything that increases your chance of contracting a disease, like cancer, is a risk factor. While many breast cancer patients lack obvious risk factors, the majority of women with one or more breast cancer risk factors never get the disease (other than being a woman and growing older). It can be challenging to determine the precise extent to which risk factors may have contributed to a woman’s cancer, even when she subsequently develops breast cancer.
Risk factors come in various forms. A person’s age or race are two variables that cannot be altered. Others are connected to environmental cancer-causing agents. Still more related to personal habits like drinking, eating, and smoking. Your risk for developing breast cancer can change over time as a result of factors like ageing or your lifestyle, which can have a greater or lesser impact on risk. According to studies, the following things increase your risk of breast cancer:
Unchangeable risk factors include:
- Gender: The main risk factor for breast cancer is simply being a woman. Despite having many more skin cells than men, women are more likely to develop breast cancer because estrogen levels, the female hormones, constantly stimulate their breast cells’ growth. Breast cancer can affect men, but it is 100 times more common in women than in men.
- Aging: As you age, your chance of getting breast cancer rises. Women under the age of 45 are diagnosed with 1 out of every 8 invasive breast cancers, while women over the age of 55 are diagnosed with 2 out of 3 invasive breast cancers.