Stat of the Week Winner: June 29 – July 5 2013

Congratulations again to Nick Iverson for his nomination on newspaper headlines about cancer, which is worth a post all by itself. It’s no wonder people are feeling confused about medical advice when most days there’s new headlines with isolated findings:

“Oily fish twice a week is best breast cancer defence.”

Someone should have told Angela Jolie. She thought the best defence was total removal.

Anyway, the Herald previously told us “Biggest breast cancer risks – obesity, alcohol and lack of exercise.”

So make up your mind, Herald, is the biggest risk lack of fish or obesity, alcohol and lack of exercise?

By the way, salted fish is another Group 1 carcinogen. So presumably your oily fish mustn’t be salted. And it must be oily not fatty because “Fatty food linked to breast cancer”.

Other big breast cancer risks: “HRT doubles danger of breast cancer” and your risk is also doubled by NOT having a teen pregnancy.

Also being a professional almost doubles your risk “Professional women more susceptible to breast cancer”, and living in NZ doubles your risk “Breast cancer: Geographic links analysed”.

Not finished yet.

Air fresheners double your risk “Breast cancer link to air fresheners”; being left handed doubles your risk “Left-handed women’s risk of breast cancer higher”.

Taking vitamin pills adds 20% to your risk “Major research finds link between multi-vitamin pills and breast cancer”. Whew! That’s a relief. For a minute there I thought it was going to double my risk.