When it comes to breast cancer, there's bad news and good news.

The bad news is that younger and younger women are being diagnosed, often with invasive and harder-to-treat forms of the disease. One new survey found that almost one out of four breast cancers diagnosed over an 11-year span occurred in women 18-49 years old.

And women under age 40 were most likely to develop invasive cases.

The good news, coming out of the 2025 San Antonio Breast CANCER Symposium, is that avoiding alcohol significantly reduces the risk of breast cancer. And if you have had breast cancer in one breast, avoiding alcohol helps reduce the risk of it developing in the second breast.

Maintaining a healthy weight is also a powerful tool in the fight against breast cancer. And early data show that taking GLP-1 weight-loss drugs can reduce the risk.

Even women with a genetic predisposition (BRCA mutations) for breast cancer can reduce their risk by maintaining a healthy weight and being physically active.  

And there's more good news. If you develop breast cancer that's HR-positive/HER2-negative, there are now six treatment options to try if the initial use of  CDK4/6 inhibitors combined with endocrine therapy isn't effective. Discuss them with your team.

In addition, a next-generation oral selective estrogen receptor antagonist and degrader (SERD) added to the treatment of early-stage HR-positive/HER2-negative breast cancer lowers the risk of recurrence much more effectively than standard hormone therapies.

For more powerful anticancer lifestyle choices, check out my book, "The Great Age Reboot."