Are you at high risk of breast cancer? Follow this early detection guide | Dr. Thaïs Aliabadi

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
Welcome to ZOE Science and Nutrition, where world leading scientists explain how their research can improve your health.
Breast cancer rates are on the rise in younger women. In 2024, some Western countries lowered the recommended routine screening age from 50 years old to 40 And while early detection saves lives, some cancers still slip between the cracks of a routine screening. But what if there was one simple step that every woman could take right now to understand her risk more accurately? Well, it turns out there is, and it's free, and it saved the life of today's guest, Dr. Thaïs Aliabadi. It also helped her patient, actress Olivia Munn, treat a rare form of breast cancer missed by her annual screening. Thaïs is a world-renowned gynecologist who delivers babies for royal families and celebrities like the Kardashians and the Biebers. She's also the host of the popular podcast, SheMD. Thaïs joins us as a breast cancer advocate to help women before it's too late. You'll leave today's episode with the tools to help with early detection for you and your loved ones. Thaïs, thank you for joining me today.

**Thaïs Aliabadi** (1:21)
Thank you for having me.

**SPEAKER_1** (1:24)
So we like to kick off our shows at ZOE with a rapid-fire Q&A with questions from our listeners. So the rules are you can give us a yes or a no, if you absolutely have to a one-sentence answer. You want me to give that a go?

**Thaïs Aliabadi** (1:38)
Sure.

**SPEAKER_1** (1:39)
All right. Are cases of breast cancer rising in younger women?

**Thaïs Aliabadi** (1:43)
Yes.

**SPEAKER_1** (1:44)
Does a mammogram always catch breast cancer?

**Thaïs Aliabadi** (1:47)
No.

**SPEAKER_1** (1:48)
Is there an accurate way to measure your lifetime risk of breast cancer?

**Thaïs Aliabadi** (1:54)
As accurate as it can get, yes.

**SPEAKER_1** (1:57)
Could the food you eat influence your risk of breast cancer?

**Thaïs Aliabadi** (2:00)
1,000 percent.

**SPEAKER_1** (2:02)
You get a whole sentence now. What's the biggest misconception about the early detection of breast cancer?

**Thaïs Aliabadi** (2:09)
I don't have family history of breast cancer, so I'm not going to have breast cancer.

**SPEAKER_1** (2:12)
That's not necessarily true?

**Thaïs Aliabadi** (2:14)
It's not true at all.

**SPEAKER_1** (2:16)
Very recently, a close family friend was diagnosed with a very high genetic risk of breast cancer and decided to opt for a double mastectomy as a result. That was really shocking to me because it's just not something that I had even considered that someone might do based upon a genetic risk from a test, and definitely completely changed my view about breast cancer. I could see that everything that I thought I'd understood about it, which was probably not very much, is all wrong. So I think today, I hope we're going to walk through everything we need to know about early prevention based upon what's going on today and maybe not the outmoded ideas that I might have had and many of us might have had, because it's clear that the science has really moved on. So I'd like to start maybe with what the guidance is. And I understand that guidance is different in different countries. So we're here in the States, so maybe US guidance about mammograms and the age at which you should have a mammogram.

**Thaïs Aliabadi** (3:12)
Well, the general guideline in the US right now says that a woman should start her mammogram at age 40 or 10 years before her first degree relative with breast cancer was diagnosed with cancer. But I'm trying to change that. Because that does not include the high-risk patients who fall into a category that might need to start their breast imaging as early as 25 or 30 So not all women fall into that age 40 or above category.

**SPEAKER_1** (3:43)
Even age 40 sounds like it is earlier than the Yes, the majority of the countries.

**Thaïs Aliabadi** (3:48)
Yep.

**SPEAKER_1** (3:49)
So has that shifted? Did it used to be later than 40?

**Thaïs Aliabadi** (3:52)
Yes, it used to be 50 and in some countries it still starts at 50 In the US for low-risk patients, it's 40 You can do it up to every two years. I think patients need to do it once a year. But I want every single person to know her lifetime risk of breast cancer. And based on that risk, then we go backwards and start the imaging. So not all women fall into that 40 and above category.

**SPEAKER_1** (4:19)
So we're definitely going to talk a lot, I think, in this show about screening. But this is the first time we talked about breast cancer on the podcast. So, what causes breast cancer? And why is it so dangerous that we sort of focus on breast cancer versus any other type of cancer?