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" Cancer&amp;#039;s scary enough without the overwhelming amount of information out there about its triggers and treatments. Between oft-repeated rumors and official studies that are subsequently questioned or even overturned, it can be hard to know what to believe and what to dismiss. The good news: Over time, researchers have consistently disproven some of the most common myths about cancer. Read on to separate the fear from the facts.  The myth: Cell phone use causes cancer. Gab all you want: Talking on your cell phone won&amp;#039;t fill your brain with tumors, research confirms. &amp;quot;The radio waves emitted by cell phones are more akin to the electromagnetic waves that your television emits than to ionizing radiations such as X-rays. They are not known to cause cancer in animals or transform cells in culture,&amp;quot; says John D. Boice Jr., scientific director of the International Epidemiology Institute, who conducted the largest long-term study about cell phone use and cancer. From the 1980s through 2002, Boice tracked 420,000 Danish cell phone users and found no link between cell phone use and the disease.  Just about every other study on the subject \u2014 not to mention esteemed organizations like the National Cancer Institute, the American Cancer Society, and the Food and Drug Administration \u2014 supports Boice&amp;#039;s findings. Ditto for the rates of brain tumors, which have not increased in the general population during the last 20 years, despite the massive proliferation of cell phones in that time. The myth: Women with a family history of breast cancer can stop worrying if they test negative for the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes.  If you have a family history of breast cancer and test negative for the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genetic mutations, you still (unfortunately) face a high risk of developing breast cancer, according to a new study conducted by Steven A. Narod, M.D., director of the Familial Breast Cancer Research Unit at the Women&amp;#039;s College Research Institute in Canada. Narod&amp;#039;s research found that family history is a much better indicator of breast cancer risk than genetic testing, which identifies about 4 percent of all breast cancer cases and about 15 percent of breast cancer cases in women with a family history of the disease.  &amp;quot;For every woman found to have a mutation,&amp;quot; says Narod, &amp;quot;another four who tested normal are also in the line of fire due to family history.&amp;quot; Women in the latter group face about a 40-percent risk of developing cancer (compared to an 80-percent risk among women with the mutation). The risk varies by family, however, says Narod. That 40-percent risk applies only if three or more of your relatives \u2014 including a sister or your mother \u2014 have had breast cancer. Assuming you don&amp;#039;t have the mutation and have only one family member who&amp;#039;s had breast cancer, you have about a 12- or 13-percent risk of developing the disease, Narod estimates; if no one in your family has had it, your risk drops to 10 percent until age 75. If you do have a family history of breast cancer and test negative for the BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations, stay vigilant: Watch for changes in your breasts. Get regular mammograms and MRI screenings. And speak with your doctor about preventative options like tamoxifen, a drug that cuts breast cancer risk in half by counteracting cancer-producing hormones on the ovary. And though you&amp;#039;re not in the clear when it comes to breast cancer, you can at least cross ovarian cancer off your list of worries. Women who tested negative in Narod&amp;#039;s study didn&amp;#039;t develop the disease, which is common among women with the BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations. The myth: Female smokers face a greater lung cancer risk than male smokers.  Some early-1990s studies might have led you to think that simply being a woman increases your odds of getting lung cancer. But later research shows that women are no more vulnerable to tobacco-smoke carcinogens than men. &amp;quot;In both women and men, current smokers of two or more packs per day were about 50 times more likely to develop lung cancer than those who had never smoked,&amp;quot; says Neal Freedman, Ph.D., a National Cancer Institute Cancer Prevention Fellow, who recently tracked nearly 500,000 women and men to identify the incidence of lung cancer.  Nonsmoking women are also no more likely to get lung cancer than nonsmoking men. &amp;quot;There isn&amp;#039;t any evidence that women are more susceptible to lung cancer from secondhand smoke than men,&amp;quot; says Michael Thun, M.D., vice president of Epidemiology and Surveillance Research at the American Cancer Society, who led another recent study that looked at the death rates of 940,000 adults who had never smoked. But know this: Lung cancer does kill more women than any other kind of cancer, breast cancer included. And although Freedman&amp;#039;s study found that women who smoke are about 20 times more likely to develop lung cancer than nonsmoking women, consistent exposure to secondhand smoke increases a nonsmoker&amp;#039;s risk of lung cancer by 20 to 30 percent, according to the Centers for Disease Control. So if you don&amp;#039;t smoke, keep it that way \u2014 and avoid secondhand smoke as much as possible, says Freedman. If you do smoke, stop. Not only will you substantially lower your risk of lung cancer, but you&amp;#039;ll reduce your risk of heart disease as well as bladder and throat cancer. The myth: Taking antioxidant supplements lowers your risk of cancer.  If popping a pill to prevent cancer sounds too good to be true, it is: A recent decade-long study found that women who took antioxidant supplements containing beta-carotene, vitamin C, or vitamin E (either individually or in combination with other antioxidants) developed cancer at the same rate as women who didn&amp;#039;t use the supplements. This corroborated the findings of a recent Mayo Clinic review of 12 clinical studies that found that antioxidant supplements did not lower cancer risk \u2014 and that beta-carotene supplements actually increased the risk of smoking-related cancers, especially among smokers. Other studies have shown increased lung cancer rates among smokers who took vitamin A supplements and a slightly higher incidence of skin cancer among women who popped low-dose antioxidant pills regularly. The problem, these studies have noted, isn&amp;#039;t antioxidants. It&amp;#039;s antioxidant supplements \u2014 pills that contain individual or multiple antioxidants, including beta-carotene, vitamin C, vitamin E, vitamin A, and zinc. While researchers don&amp;#039;t know exactly why these pills fail to deliver cancer-fighting benefits, many suspect that antioxidants&amp;#039; beneficial properties may get lost when they are extracted from whole food and packaged in supplements. If you use facial moisturizers with added antioxidants, there&amp;#039;s no need to stop; while it&amp;#039;s too early to tell for sure whether they prevent skin cancer, there&amp;#039;s no reason to believe they do any damage either. In the end, the best way to get the antioxidants you need is from your diet, says Serge Hercberg, M.D., Ph.D., professor of nutrition at the Medical University of Paris, who headed a recent study on antioxidants and skin cancer. Eat at least five servings of fruits and vegetables a day to reap the benefits of antioxidants \u2014 and myriad other nutrients. The myth: Drinking coffee causes cancer.  Ever since a methodologically flawed study showed a link between coffee and pancreatic cancer in the 1980s, just about every study since has reached the opposite conclusion. So sip away: Your morning coffee won&amp;#039;t kill you. Java might even help you live longer, according to new research, which shows that women who drank two or three cups a day \u2014 caffeinated or decaffeinated \u2014 faced a lower risk of early death from all health-related causes. The reason? Coffee reduces the risk of heart disease \u2014 related death by decreasing inflammation and improving insulin sensitivity, explains the leader of a recent study, Esther L\u00F3pez-Garcia, Ph.D., a researcher in the Department of Preventative Medicine and Public Health at Madrid&amp;#039;s Universidad Aut\u00F3noma. Although future studies will be necessary to confirm coffee&amp;#039;s perks as a fountain of youth, L\u00F3pez-Garcia attests that swilling it won&amp;#039;t cause cancer. And that peace of mind is something any woman can drink to. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.redbookmag.com/body/health-fitness/advice/a4749/cancer-myths/>