Ignoramus2772 wrote:
In article , Dally wrote:

Ignoramus25707 wrote:

That said, I think that a finding of a negative link between anorexia
and brest cancer to be interesting and worth mentioning.

I objected to you saying, "do you want to get breast cancer" in the
context of advocating choosing anorexia as a reasonable risk management
method. You really did, Ig. Really.

You understand that the girl's chances of dying from anorexia far,
far, far outweigh her chances of getting breast cancer?

Let's look at "girl's chances of dying from anorexia" vs. "her chances
of getting breast cancer".

An average anorexic's chance of dying from anorexia, according to

http://www.mentalhealth.com/mag1/p5m-et01.html

is 5-10%.

An average woman's risk of getting breast cancer is 6.3%, about in the
same range.

So, these numbers are not incomparable at all.

And 10% of 15 year olds dying from breast cancer is equivalent to 6.3%
of women getting breast cancer by the time they're 90? (Please note
that most women do NOT die of breast cancer, and the young women who DO
die of breast cancer tend to have the kind that isn't ameliorated by
risk management, i.e., they've got the genetic kind of an aggressive
fast moving tumor.)

You're wrong.

Lest the more stupid members of this newsgroup jump at me for allegedly
"supporting anorexia", I want to point out that other methods of
reducing breast cancer incidence are superior to anorexia, for example
staying relatively slim, eating well and having a few children.

You're wrong: the correlation between these risk factors and breast
cancer is there, but it's slight. MOST risk factors are minor in
nature. The big Daddy risk factor isn't identified. There are ways to
slightly improve your odds of not getting cancer, but the odds improve
so slightly that it's hardly worth mentioning.


Parity is a well known and controllable negative influence on breast
cancer risk.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/q...&dopt=Abstract

``It is estimated that the cumulative incidence of breast cancer in
developed countries would be reduced by more than half, from 6.3 to
2.7 per 100 women by age 70, if women had the average number of births
and lifetime duration of breastfeeding that had been prevalent in
developing countries until recently.''

So now you're advocating overpopulation as a theoretical method of
reducing your chances of getting (probably curable) breast cancer from 6
to 3 women in 100?

You're not very good at risk/benefit analysis, are you?

A much better reason to breastfeed is the benefits to the child. The
benefits to the mother are mild and quite possibly outweighed by the
damage to the mother. (I'm speaking here as someone who nursed all over
her children past infancy.)

I have no immediate relatives with breast cancer, I've nursed
children for a total of four years and I have a normal fat
percentage. Functionally speaking I've lowered my risk nearly not
at all. I know women just like me who are getting it all around me.
It's like the new phase in our lives... first were the years we were
all marrying, then the years we all had little babies, now we're
into the "adventures in medicine" years. Most of us survive these
adventures, though. None of us deserve them, it just goes with the
territory when you own a human body.

I do not share your fatalistic attitude when it comes to chances of
breast cancer. It is not supportd by evidence. You cannot eliminate
all chances, but you can improve them.

How much, at what cost. That question must be in every single
discussion on this subject.

I'm not living my life in fear of breast cancer. Colon cancer is just
as likely to get me, and heart disease is the one with a bullet with my
name on it. But at this point I'm better off making sure I buckle my
seat belt and having a working smoke detector.

Dally