Breast Cancer: Risks and Myths | Paul Sylvester | TEDxULM

We may not know everything about breast cancer, but we have a great amount of research on the risk factors. Dr. Sylvester shares with us how to decrease our chance of developing breast cancer in the hopes that we can reduce the prevalence of the most common cancer in women.
Dr. Sylvester received his B.S. degree in Biology from Western Michigan University, in Kalamazoo, MI and his Ph.D. in Physiology from Michigan State University in East Lansing, MI. He completed his postdoctoral training in Experimental Therapeutics at Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo, NY. Prior to his arrival at the University of Louisiana at Monroe, Dr. Sylvester was a faculty member for 10 years in the College of Pharmacy at Washington State University in Pullman, WA.
Dr. Sylvester is an endocrinologist and his research interests have focused on endocrine-dependent diseases, particularly breast cancer. Dr. Sylvester and his collaborators have also been awarded 4 U.S. and international patents and has several additional patents pending review.
This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at ted.com/tedx

[@abigailpmm1182]

How does one "delay" puberty?

[@riteshmistry8095]

Thank you for this informative video

[@lizmarth2034]

Some of the risk factors that he lists do not seem to have significant evidence behind them. For instance, when he talks about how more black women die from breast cancer than white women do, he stated that it could be due to black women having a different type of tumor suppressing gene that is mutated and causing a more deadly form of breast cancer. He states this yet, he does not say that there is a study looking into that specifically or that there was some kind of indication that this was more of a cause for black women dying of breast cancer than the economy or social class. I also think that it is not right for him to say that height is a risk factor for breast cancer in all women when a study was only done on Korean women. If there could be a different tumor supressing gene for black women then the risk factor for height should be tested through all of the races, they can't just generalize that to all women when clearly we all have different genes and therefore different risks. Another risk factor that did not seem very plausible was the fact that he stated we should delay puberty in children because it lowers the risk of breast cancer the more we delay puberty. First, I would like to know how we are going to delay puberty in children and if it would be safe for them and their futures if we started doing this. Also, I would like to know if this is something that we are going to have to pay to do to our children is it going to be cost effective. Not to mention would it be better to invest all of this time in researching something like delaying puberty instead of researching a cure for cancer. Delaying puberty just lowers the risk of cancer, there is still a chance that they could get breast cancer even after delaying puberty. It would benefit more people if we spent more time and money researching how to cure cancer rather than how to lower the risk of cancer. No matter how much you lower the risk there is still always a chance that you can get cancer.

[@meahdahlgren6537]

Right I agree

[@tracyrodgers5179]

Love how he glazed over alcohol and obesity and focused on things we don’t control. I stopped listening after it seems he’s saying to “delay” or “push ahead” puberty but have a baby in your teens. Have many babies. 😳

[@meahdahlgren6537]

Right