The other day I came across an article stating women should get fewer mammograms in their lifetime and advised doctors to stop performing routine breast exams. Every day, it seems there is something else warning us of the risk of contracting some sort of disease, especially cancer, and this seems to just add fuel to a very confusing fire.
The article, published in The Star, states women can get false positives on the tests, which set off a wave of unnecessary treatment, additional tests and anxiety. But, what about the many women who do get screened, and do discover they have cancer? Isn’t some anxiety worth the risk?
Receiving a false positive and learning later you did not have cancer would be frustrating, to say the least. But finding out you had cancer when it’s too late and then knowing you could have done something to prevent the worst possible outcome would be much more disheartening.
On the very same day, an article published in The Telegraph stated the length of time cancer survivors live after treatment is increasing, thanks to increased awareness and advances in medical treatment. This of course is good news, but adds to the tug-of-war of information out there.
Just days before that article, another U.K. article published in the Daily Mail talked about how the country is banning body scanners at airports because of radiation risks and the possibility they might cause cancer. Most people have heard about the issue of the scanners’ possible risks, but for a country to move forward and ban the machines, that are essentially meant to protect citizens, means someone, somewhere, saw a threat that superseded the safety the machines are designed to offer.
Some days, it’s hard to know what to believe. Do you eat your fresh fruits and vegetables at lunch or do you avoid them because of the possibility the chemicals sprayed on them might give you cancer and opt for the bag of potato chips that might give you heart disease?
I think in the end it has to come down to common sense and doing what you feel is right. I know my eating habits aren’t the best, but I also know that if I don’t get enough healthy foods in my diet, I feel it. Serving myself a plate of food without anything naturally colourful just doesn’t feel right.
There is also a lot of conflicting information about physical fitness out there. I think we’ve all heard the ambiguous story of the marathon runner who died of a heart attack, but like anything, I think moderation is key. And along with that comes moderation in our eating habits, moderation in our travelling habits, and moderation with how much time we spend surfing the Internet worrying about getting cancer.
