Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Something in the Water? Something in the Food?
Came across a very disturbing article today. Girls as young as 11 are being diagnosed with breast cancer. How surprising is this? According to the article, “Only about 7 percent of breast cancer cases occur in patients under the age of 40.”
That’s a really small incidence rate for a very large percentage of the population.
The cases mentioned in the article occurred in girls with no family history of breast cancer. Often women with the BRCA1 or 2 genes develop breast cancer earlier than most women, but by earlier, that means their 20s and 30s, not before they have even reached puberty.
The article does not speculate as to the possible cases of these cases of breast cancer in young girls, but one has to wonder whether whether the chemicals in our food and water (hormones used to affect milk in cows jump immediately to mind) are leading to this affect.
Is there any direct evidence linking chemicals and hormones in the diet to reduced age and puberty and increased incidence of breast cancer? No. But we don’t seem to have any direct causal evidence, which would lead me–if I were a mother–to try and avoid these chemicals in my home and in the diet of my children.
But I’m not writing to point fingers. I’m writing because this is something that parents need to be aware of. If you have daughters–or know someone with daughters–please share this information with them.
Loading ...
October 30th, 2009 at 10:25 am
As we boys used to say, “They sure didn’t build them that way when we were growing up” (in reference to teenage girls). While finding breast cancer in girls who are just at the point that their breast are developing is very sad, I can’t say it wasn’t foreseen. What most people don’t know is that all those hormones we pump into our animals can transfer in the food products, and that our food animals no longer live long lives (chicken are typically 1 year, beef cattle are 3 years, and milk cows are 7 years, when it used to be chickens are 3 years, beef cattle 5-7 years, and milk cows lived into their teens). However, with the hormone treatments (and antibiotics), we can bring them to production sooner and cheaper. Of course, what isn’t said is that the levels of drugs we put into the animals haven’t been studied over the long term (because the animals themselves don’t live long).