The vast majority of women worries about breast cancer after age 50. While it is important to continue awareness in relation to this disease, it is also important to realise that mortality associated with breast cancer is low and it is not the leading cause of death for women.

The leading cause of death for women is heart disease so if you want to live longer you need to worry more about your heart.

The first thing to do is to assess your risk and doing this is very simple:

  • check your family history. Do you have any close relatives in particular your parents who had high blood pressure, diabetes or suffered heart disease?
  • check your BMI. Measure your height and your weight and input them in one of the many calculators that you can download from the internet. Your number should be below 25 but you are in more serious trouble if it is over 30.
  • check your waist circumference. Using a tape measurement check the circumference around your belly button area. Your number should be below 88 cm.
  • check your blood pressure. Many pharmacies offer this check as a free service.

This process is very simple but it is enough to make a good judgement on your situation.If you don’t score well in any of these three things you should make a plan on how to change them and talk to your gp to add a few more tests like sugar and cholesterol levels.