Breast Cancer Awareness: Do you know what your environmental risks are?

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Breast Cancer Awareness: The Environmental Risks — by Catherine Morgan (cross-posted at BlogHer)

I was honored to be asked and participate in a phone conference this week on breast cancer, sponsored by LUNA and the Breast Cancer Fund, together they have established Pure Prevention. The call brought two nationally recognized environmental health experts, Dr. Janet Gray and the Executive Director of the Breast Cancer Fund, Jeanne Rizzo, to answer questions from a selected group of health bloggers. It was an hour conference that anyone can listen to here.

The focus of this conference and Pure Prevention, is to look at ways a woman can lower her risk of breast cancer by lowering her environmental risks. Many of these risks I was not even aware of, so I am grateful to have been a part of this discussion. My thanks to Cynthia Samuels for inviting me to participate.

Because only 1 out of 10 women who have breast cancer have a genetic history of the disease, what women put on and in their bodies can make the difference. Pure Prevention is a new campaign that seeks to expand on the “cure-centered” breast cancer conversation by helping women identify the environmental causes of the disease and inspiring them to make smart choices about the products they use every day.

One of the questions I asked, was about environmental risks that might not be getting enough attention, and that many women might be unaware of. Several were brought to my attention, including “ionizing radiation” and “electromagnetic fields“. However, the one I found most disturbing, was about the chemicals that are known to be dangerous but are still being used in the packaging of our foods. So even when you are eating a healthy diet, you could still be ingesting many chemicals that could be harmful your health. Frustrating isn’t it?