The Leading Cause of Breast Cancer: Medical Radiation
December 28th, 2011But keep getting those scans, the New York Times reminds you:
The most consistent data suggest that women can reduce their risk by avoiding unnecessary medical radiation, forgoing hormone treatments for menopause that combine estrogen and progestin, limiting alcohol intake and minimizing weight gain, the report found. (Controlling weight appears helpful only in preventing postmenopausal breast cancers, not those in younger women.) Overuse of CT scans, which deliver a relatively high dose of radiation, was a particular concern, but the report stated that women should not be deterred from having routine mammograms, which use a much smaller dose.
Via: CounterPunch:
Profiteers in the medical CT scan business took a big hit last week from a major new government report on the causes of breast cancer.
Published by the Institute of Medicine (IOM), the health arm of the National Academy of Sciences, the exhaustive analysis found that medical radiation, particularly the large radiation dose delivered by CT scans, is the foremost identifiable cause of breast cancer.
Research Credit: roaches
