Mammogram Confusion - When Should I Do My Mammogram?

When do I start getting mammograms and how often should I get them?

When should I start getting mammograms? 

While many doctors say that 40 should be the starting age for mammograms, not everyone is on the same page. The American Cancer Society recommends that women should have their first mammogram at age 40 and then every year following. The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) recommends starting at age 50 and then every two years. "The problem is that the younger you are, the more dense your breasts," says Sara Gottfried, MD, an obgyn in San Francisco and author of The Hormone Reset Diet. When you start screening at a younger age, you are balancing the risk of the procedure—radiation and false positives, as well as false negatives due to dense breasts—versus the benefits of earlier detection." 

Breast anatomy

Can I figure out what my breast cancer risk is?

Yes, kind of. Risk is most commonly calculated using the Gail Model, which will tell you your 5-year risk of developing breast cancer and your lifetime risk. But it won't tell you when to start getting a mammo or how often to get it. There's currently no clear-cut way to do that. But research being done right now might lead to a future paradigm for weighing the relevant risk factors:

• Carriers of the BRCA1/BRCA2 genes 
• Having a mother or sister with breast cancer 
• Having your first period before 12 
• Older than 30 for first baby 
• Over 55 when starting menopause 
• Past or current use or oral contraceptives 
• Those who drink 2 to 5 alcoholic beverages a day 
• Dense breasts on mammogram 
• Greater bone density 
• History of a benign breast biopsy 

Angelina Jolie done two mastectomy due to discovery of BRCA gene carrier

Can I lower my risk for breast cancer? 

Yes. The following "protective factors" are associated with a lower risk of having breast cancer, says Jan R. Penvose-Yi, MD, from Tri-City Medical Center in San Diego, CA:

• Regular exercise
• Breastfeeding 
• Having several children 
• Keeping a healthy BMI 
• Having ovaries removed before age 35 

Breast feeding reduces the risk for breast cancer

What's this about dense breasts and mammograms? 

"Having dense breasts means that on a mammogram at least 50% of the breast tissue appears white," says Maggie DiNome, MD, director of the Margie Petersen Breast Center at John Wayne Cancer Institute at Providence Saint John's Health Center in Santa Monica, CA. 

"That means a small breast cancer, which would also be white, might hide in those dense areas of tissue. It's like trying to find a polar bear in a snowstorm." Adding a second type of screening can overcome the limitations of a mammogram. 

"In addition to mammograms, there are further screening tools for dense breast tissue such as Tomography and the Automated Breast Ultrasound (ABUS). These are designed specifically for women with dense breast tissue," says Sonja L. Cerra-Gilch, MD, section chief of breast imaging and intervention at Aria Health.

Do dense breasts get less dense over time?

Yes, according to Claudia Mason, MD, a board member of Susan G. Komen South Florida. Thus, it's sometimes easier to detect cancer on mammograms as you age. This is one of the reasons some doctors believe in starting mammograms at age 50. If your breasts continue to be dense after menopause, you should be monitored closely by your doctor, says Wulf H Utian, MD, medical director of The North American Menopause Society.

Sp if I do have cancer, how likely is a mammogram to actually detect it?

The older you are, the more likely it is to successfully find cancer. "Randomized trials have shown that the sensitivity of mammography and clinical breast examination is higher in older women," says Penvose-Yi. "It has been estimated that mammography detects about 73% of breast cancers in women in their early 40s and 85% of breast cancers in women in their early 60s."

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One Glass Of Red Wine A Day Equals One Hour At The Gym?

Are you addicted to going to the gym? Look at those muscular monster working on their muscles and beautiful slim shape beauty jogging on the track. no matter what is your purpose to go to gym, what we actually have here is a wonderful discovery for regular gym-goers, but which is also good for people who do not go to the gym at all.

Gym Works

Are you sometimes the worse for wear to go the gym and have your regular ‘glass of workout? It’s not a big deal – you can have another equally effective glass. A new study suggests that a glass of red wine could mimic the benefits gained by going to the gym for an hour.

The researcher Jack Dyck, in his research conducted at the University of Alberta-Canada, discovered that a red wine compound called resveratrol provides some of the same benefits as an hour of cross training. 

“We were excited when we saw that resveratrol showed results similar to what you would see from extensive endurance exercise training. I think resveratrol could help patient populations who want to exercise, but are physically incapable. Resveratrol could mimic exercise for them or improve the benefits of the modest amount of exercise that they can do. We immediately saw the potential for this and thought that we identified a ‘improved exercise performance in a pill,”

says Jack Dyck’s, the lead researcher. So, next time if you decide you want to skip the gym session, and have a glass of wine with the girls you really have no reason to be guilty. But, there are many people who are physically incapable of hitting the gym that this discovery really could be beneficial for. Expectedly, your next question is:

Red or white wine?

Remember this: Only a glass of red wine counts because a glass of white wine or a shot of tequila will not have the same effect! So, drinking only ONE glass of red wine can improve your physical strength and performance.

But you must stop at the first glass and say: Let’s call it a day! You must not chug one, two or more glasses of wine in order to get better results! Because you will only get drunk and get more calories to burn next time you go the gym!

Only one Glass, I swear

And wine experts certainly know that grape sugariness is the most important thing for producing quality wine brands. The standards of performance that oenologists use to judge wine quality include the following:

Balance

The relationship of four components — sweetness, acidity, tannin, and alcohol — to one another. A wine is balanced when nothing sticks out as you taste it, like harsh tannin or too much sweetness.

Choose your Wine

Length

Used to describe a wine that gives an impression of going all the way on the palate — you can taste it across the full length of your tongue — rather than stopping short halfway. Many wines today are very up front on the palate — they make a big impression as soon as you taste them — but they don’t go the distance in your mouth. They are short.

Try not to Spills

Depth

This is another subjective, unmeasurable attribute of a high-quality wine. We say a wine has depth when it seems to have a dimension of verticality — that is, it does not taste flat and one-dimensional in your mouth. A ‘flat’ wine can never be great.

Color of the wine

Complexity

There’s nothing wrong with a simple, straightforward wine, especially if you enjoy it. But a wine that keeps revealing different things about itself, always showing you a new flavor or impression — a wine that has complexity — is usually considered better quality.

Smells it

Finish

The impression a wine leaves in the back of your mouth and in your throat after you have swallowed it is its finish or aftertaste. In a good wine, you can still perceive the wine’s flavors — such as fruitiness or spiciness — at that point. Some wines may finish hot, because of high alcohol, or bitter, because of tannin — both shortcomings. Or a wine may have nothing much at all to say for itself after you swallow.

Taste

Typicity

In order to judge whether a wine is true to its type, you have to know how that type is supposed to taste. So you have to know the textbook characteristics of wines made from the major grape varieties and wines of the world’s classic wine regions.

Spring seems to be delayed, so while there’s still a bit of chilly nip in the air treat yourself to a glass of a delicious full-bodied wine. Instead of going to the gym, warm up with your quality glass of wine!

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Drinking THIS Could Significantly Cut Your Most Annoying Menopause Symptoms

If someone were to tell you a drink exists that could slash your heart disease risk and relieve menopause symptoms, would you assume it was something disgusting involving cod liver oil? Or maybe that it was bottled by unicorns? Of course you would. But you'd be wrong. You actually stand to gain both health perks from a plain old beverage available basically everywhere: tomato juice. 

We already knew that tomatoes themselves were both delicious and also an anti-cancer food. But according to a new study, drinking the juice might actually be better for you than eating the fruit whole. 

The study, published in Nutrition Journal, involved 95 women (ages 40 to 60) who had at least one menopausal symptom, such as anxiety, irritability, and hot flashes. Participants drank 200 mL—roughly 4/5 of a cup—of unsalted (ah, the hitch! Unsalted!) tomato juice twice a day for eight weeks. 

Researchers at the Tokyo Medical University in Japan tracked the women's heart rate, blood pressure, and cholesterol and also evaluated their menopausal symptoms at 4 and 8 weeks. After just four weeks of drinking the juice, those with triglyceride levels higher than 150 mg/dL saw a substantial decrease to around 70 mg/dL (the American Heart Association recommends levels under 100 mg/dL). Meanwhile, menopausal symptoms were reduced by 16%. 

The likely reasons for the improvements: Bioactive components like 13-oxo-ODA, a fatty acid that's only found in tomato juice and that prevents metabolic syndrome, and esculeoside A, a phytonutrient that supports heart health. Tomato juice also has more lycopene, which can help reduce menopausal stress, and antioxidants (a result of heat activation during the canning process). 

"Another substance naturally found in tomato juice is a neurotransmitter called gamma-aminobutyric acid, or GABA, which can help relieve hot flashes and reduce stress," says Steven A. Rabin, MD, a Los Angeles-based obstetrician and gynecologist specializing in patients with menopause. 

You won't find the compounds above listed on any nutrition label, and so far we don't know how much variability there is among tomato-juice brands. For now, the best you can do is to buy any unsalted tomato juice you can find, suggests Masakazu Terauchi, PhD, one of the study's authors. Of course, a USDA-approved organic juice is always best. As Rabin puts it, "there aren't any known downsides to adding a serving or more of tomato juice to your diet," and there are plenty of upsides—including the fact that it doesn't taste like cod liver oil.

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