Clear Science
Breast cancer can't be traced back to any one thing. Rather than looking for single, direct causes, we should recognize the multiple, interacting factors that influence risk.
Among the risk factors are exposures to radiation, carcinogens and chemicals that act like hormones (known as endocrine disruptors). Add into the mix your genes, diet, lifestyle and reproductive history and you begin to see the complex web of breast cancer causation.
At the Breast Cancer Fund, we focus on understanding the environmental exposures linked to breast cancer. Some of these exposures have a direct effect on our biological processes, and some have an interactive effect when combined with others. Either way, by learning how these exposures affect breast cancer, we can take action to reduce our risk.
The information below is selected from our landmark report, State of the Evidence (Sixth edition 2010).
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Which Chemicals Are Linked to Breast Cancer?
From cosmetics to air pollution, learn which chemicals we're concerned about and where they're found.
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Vulnerable Populations
Depending on where you live, where you work and your ethnic background, you might have an increased risk of breast cancer.
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Timing of Exposure
The timing of chemical and radiation exposure is at least as important as the dose.
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Innovative Research
The links between breast cancer and our environment are complex and underexplored. But research can help us connect these dots.
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05.03.12
Worth a read: How chemicals affect us
Nicholas Kristof calls out canned food and cosmetics as culprits and breast cancer as one tragic effect of our current stew of endocrine-disrupting chemicals
04.25.12
Styrene industry gets Congressâ ear on cancer listing, and we all lose
The National Toxicology Programâs crucial Report on Carcinogens is on trial in Congress today in the face of industry accusations that listing styrene as a "reasonably anticipated human carcinogen" hurts jobs.
