Is there a connection between environmental toxins and breast cancer?
Ben Ward, Virginia Beach, VA More than 200,000 women are diagnosed with breast cancer each year in the United States, and 20 percent are likely to die from it. Breast cancers among women have climbed steadily in the U.S. and other industrialized nations since the 1940s. More than half of women diagnosed with breast cancer do not have any of the known or traditional risk factors such as family history, hormonal factors or a fatty diet, and researchers suspect that widespread exposure to environmental toxins is triggering the surge. Strong evidence linking chemicals to breast cancer include studies showing that lifetime chemical exposure to naturally produced estrogens (female hormones produced by the ovaries and other adrenal glands) increases the risk of breast cancer. New evidence also suggests that exposure to compounds that mimic these natural estrogens, such as hormone replacement therapy and oral contraceptives, also increases risk. Other compounds found to increase breast cancer
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