Pop Culture: Christina Applegate diagnosed with Breast Cancer

Christina Applegate, 36, diagnosed with what's being called an early stage breast cancer. Developing story...

Link

Update 8/6/08: Thank you Christina Applegate for bringing young breast cancer into the mainstream media's view. Here's a quote from CNN.com :

Only 4% of women diagnosed with breast cancer every year in the United
States are under 40, but that still represents 8,000 women, she says. “If a
woman finds a lump, she still needs to go to a doctor and not be told, ‘You’re
too young to have breast cancer.’”

In the News (Local): First Lady launches Breast Cancer Initiative

Good job!

FRANKFORT, Ky. — Women working on the backside of Kentucky’s horse tracks will get breast cancer screenings under an initiative launched today by First Lady Jane Beshear. The “Horses and Hope” initiative also will raise money for research and outreach programs and sponsor breast cancer race days at Kentucky’s tracks to promote awareness.

In the News

OMG, seriously? Another story? Story #5 of the week, #3 of the day:

More Cancer Patients Choosing Mastectomies: "In the Mayo Clinic study, about 45 percent of breast cancer patients chose mastectomies in 1997. That declined to only 30 percent in 2003, then started to rise. By 2006, 43 percent were opting for the more radical treatment. The rise coincided with wider use in the clinic of MRI, or magnetic resonance imaging. Studies show it can detect far more breast abnormalities than ordinary mammograms but it also gives a lot of false alarms."

I was advised not to bother with the MRI-- it would just turn up more "clutter."

Enough already, MSNBC! Give me more stories about Ellen DeGeneres & Portia de Rossi's upcoming nuptuals or the split between Kate and Owen and/or Tony and Jessica!

Kidding. But still...

In the News

Obviously, when you're keyed into something, you suddenly "see" it everywhere. I'm not looking for breast cancer news; I'm not Googling it. I'm just reading MSNBC.com as usual, and here's the fourth article this week and second one today:

Drug Combo May Help Breast Cancer Patients: "A combination of two new-generation cancer drugs modestly delayed the time it took for cancer to worsen in a study of 300 women with very advanced disease who had stopped responding to other treatments. It was the first test of these two highly targeted drugs, Herceptin and Tykerb. Both aim at a protein called HER-2/neu that is made in abnormally large quantities in about one-fourth of all breast cancers. Herceptin blocks the protein on the cell's surface; Tykerb does it inside the cell."

It's enough to make you wonder whether or not someone at MSNBC is living with breast cancer or with living around breast cancer.

In The News

Vitamin D may benefit Breast Cancer Patients: "Only 24 percent of women in the study had sufficient blood levels of D at the time they were first diagnosed with breast cancer. Those who were deficient were nearly twice as likely to have their cancer recur or spread over the next 10 years, and 73 percent more likely to die of the disease.... But people shouldn't start downing supplements... Experts don't agree on how much vitamin D people need or the best way to get it, and too much can be harmful. They also don't know whether getting more vitamin D can help when someone already has cancer.... We have no idea whether correcting a vitamin D deficiency will in any way alter these outcomes,'' said Dr. Julie Gralow, a cancer specialist at the University of Washington in Seattle."

Harumph.

In the News

Two news stories from the past two days:

Excercising as teen may stave off breast cancer: "Women who were physically active as teens and young adults were 23 percent less likely to develop premenopausal breast cancer than women who grew up sedentary, researchers report Wednesday in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. The biggest impact was regular exercise from ages 12 to 22"

I definitely had that covered at least until 18 or so.

Breast fed women have lower risk of breast cancer. : "New research has found that women who were breast-fed as infants may be at lower risk of breast cancer than those who were not breast fed. However, there appears to be no difference in breast cancer risk in first-born children, regardless of whether or not they were breast-fed. "

Well, I am a first, and only, child, but I was not breast fed. So...