The insider’s guide to cancer prevention
These experts spend their lives fighting cancer. They have heard every tip, sensible or not, for how to avoid it. They tell Oliver Laughland how their lifestyles have changed as a result
The breast specialist
Tena Walters, 51, consultant, London Breast Clinic
Just this week the papers splashed on another piece of research criticising breast cancer screening, saying that for every woman saved by the procedure, up to 10 have been treated unnecessarily. This sort of coverage is a constant annoyance. The evidence just doesn’t stack up. I’ve worked as a breast surgeon for 16 years, and have been having mammograms myself since I was 44, six years younger than the NHS breast cancer screening programme stipulates. To my mind, it is still the strongest preventative measure one can take, and dealing with the disease on a daily basis means I’m lucid with the statistical risks: one in 250 for 40-year-olds, one in 50 for 47-year-olds and, roughly, a one-in-10 lifetime risk.
I nip down to the radiographer once every year, in a spare five minutes, to get it done. It’s always on my birthday, so I don’t forget. I don’t particularly enjoy it, as it can be awkward exposing yourself, especially to people you work with, but you get over it.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/04/07/the-insiders-guide-to-cancer-prevention/
