A few months ago, the world was rocked by revelations about the health of actress Angelina Jolie. The actress revealed that she had opted to improve her wellness and wellbeing by undergoing a double mastectomy. This was due to the fact that she had tested positive for the BRCA 1 gene, following the death of her mother, and this meant that preemptive surgery gave her the best chance of staying healthy.
BRCA1 is a gene that makes people more susceptible to breast or ovarian cancer. It is a very dangerous gene to be in possession of, as it makes your chances of getting cancer extremely high (and the chances of a cure much lower than for the average person who contracts these types of cancer.
Breast cancer is a very common disease; statistics show that around 12 percent of women will develop the disease at some point during their lives. If women have a positive test for the BRCA mutation, their chances are much higher.
Jolie’s mother Marcheline Bertrand died in 2007 of ovarian cancer, and her aunt died recently of breast cancer, leading Jolie to suspect that there may be a higher risk of her possessing the gene. If you have a number of close relatives who have this disease, it can be an indicator that you are a carrier of the gene.
To that end, if you are adopted or have become estranged from your family, it’s a really good idea to do some background research and find out about any family history, so that you can take any precautions necessary.
Since the surgery, Jolie has revealed that her children were a major reason for her decision to go ahead with the surgery; the actress did not want her children to have to fear losing her to cancer. Her chances of the disease, following the surgery, have dropped from a scary 86 percent to just under five percent.
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