When someone well-known such as Christina Applegate is diagnosed with breast cancer, many adult women become concerned as to what the future holds for them.
While it’s true that 1 out of 8 American women will be diagnosed with breast cancer (breast cancer types)at some point in her lifetime, there are also a lot of misconceptions about the disease floating around.
Although Applegate is just 36 years old, the fact remains that breast cancer is more likely to strike women over the age of 50.
Still, many women under the age of 40 may now be tempted to run out and demand mammograms.
But mammograms are ineffective for most young women, told Dr. Diana Zuckerman, president of the National Research Center for Women & Families.
“Young women’s breasts are dense and if they get mammograms, their breasts show up very white on mammograms and cancer shows up as white,” she said.
“But, as women get older, their breasts are less dense and show up gray on a mammogram, which makes it easy to identify the white cancer.
If there is a family history, and women are worried, they can start earlier and in this case a digital mammography may work better than a traditional mammography.”
Five myths about breast cancer are explained in this article.
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