Blessings, Darlings!
This is a tip that applies to ciswomen only: being pregnant or nursing your entire post-puberty life greatly reduces your risk of breast cancer. At least if you are a female rat.
There is an INCREDIBLY HIGH rate of breast cancer in female pet rats. Why? Because evolution's programming is for them to be pregnant or nursing - or both at once - all the time. Pet owners, however, not wanting to find homes for all those ratlings, don't tend to let that happen. So they get breast cancer a lot.
For human women, it's a bit different. There is a slightly lower risk of having breast cancer if you have at least one child, especially one before you turn 30. There is an additional slightly lower risk if you have many children - the main theory is because you have fewer menstrual periods. I'm not sure about the details on how that helps, the scientists might not know yet.
Of course, having one (or more) child(ren) just to reduce your risk of cancer is not doing justice to the child(ren). Gods know, parenting is rarely about the parent, when done right.
Frondly, Fern
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I wonder if breastfeeding for extended (in our culture, anyway!) periods is also a help. I had 2 kids by age 24 and breastfed for a total of nearly 5 years. And I do think that, while genetics can play a big part in cancer risk, your life choices can make a big difference; the only woman on either side of my family to get breast cancer was told she most likely developed it due to being on huge doses of fertility drugs for years.
ReplyDeleteI'm so screwed. Or not screwed enough, depending on your perspective.
ReplyDeletePat, pat, pat - we'll find you other tips. Oh, I'm ready for more beefiness, as is the Suz.... we'll cover organic beef in a later tip!
ReplyDelete