Cancer Rates Are on the Rise for Young People–Can Diet & Lifestyle Choices Lower the Risk?

The first time I casually crossed my arms across my chest and felt the small lump just outside my right armpit, I shrugged it off. We were packing up to go camping for my 36th birthday, and I also had some last-minute race prep to do for a big four-day bike race the following weekend. In other words, I was too busy—and, I thought, too healthy and too young—to worry about the pea-size bump neatly bisected by the seam of my sports bra.

Six weeks later, I was diagnosed with early-onset breast cancer.1 I kept racing my bike as my oncologists mapped out my treatment plan—a lumpectomy, followed by four rounds of chemo and six weeks of radiation, plus 10 years of endocrine therapy—until the stitches from surgeries and biopsies made racing impossible. I kept riding, though, seeking to hold tight to the version of myself I knew best: strong, active, capable and, most of all, healthy—even as my oncologists gently explained that, due to my relatively young age and the fact that a tiny bit of cancer had spread to one of my lymph nodes, treatment would be aggressive and I would probably be pretty sick for at least a few months.