Letha’s Asian Health Secrets

Last weekend there was a symposium at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York exploring whether certain common chemicals are linked to breast cancer and other ailments. Dr. Philip Landrigan, the chairman of the department of preventive medicine at Mount Sinai, said that the risk that a 50-year-old white woman will develop breast cancer has soared to 12 percent today, from 1 percent in 1975. Younger people are developing breast cancer: This year a 10-year-old in California is fighting breast cancer. Asthma is also on the rise. According to a report in June, 2009 The Business Insider, the Bronx is the asthma capital of the country. Asthma rates have tripled over the last 25 years, Dr. Landrigan said. Childhood leukemia is increasing. Obesity has surged. One factor may be environmental and household chemicals. It is a known fact that most women living in Asia have low rates of breast cancer, but ethnic Asian women born and raised in the United States don’t enjoy that benefit. At the symposium, Dr. Alisan Goldfarb, a surgeon specializing in breast cancer, pointed to a chart showing breast cancer rates by ethnicity. “If an Asian woman moves to New York, her daughters will be in this column,” she said, pointing to “whites.” “It is something to do with the environment.” ((It may also be diet!))

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