Heart Health & Breast Cancer 

Thursday, October 20, 2022

Breast and other cancer treatments can cause heart and artery diseases, which need to be identified and treated. Some may even be prevented. Watch the recording to hear from two cardiologists who work with people diagnosed with breast cancer and a panel of experts to learn about who is affected, common signs and symptoms, and how they are working to prevent and manage cancer-related cardiovascular diseases. 

Physical activity is one of the most beneficial things you can do for your health. It reduces the risk of many diseases, including breast cancer. It can also lead to better outcomes for people who have breast cancer and reduce the risk of reoccurrence for those who have recovered from the disease.

Did you know that you don’t have to drip sweat to see the benefits of exercise? For example, tai chi is a gentle exercise that shows similar benefits to more vigorous activities. It may improve the immune system, cardio-vascular fitness, strength, flexibility, balance, stress level and sleep.

We’re expanding our pre-puberty materials! In addition to the Girls’ New Puberty resources directed at parents/caregivers, we now have an activity booklet for girls (and all kids) ages 5+. Download and print our Healthy Activity Booklet: Being Healthy is About Feeling Our Best!

The booklet promotes lifelong health and wellness by providing healthy action ideas to color and asking girls to draw what they like to do. There’s also a bingo activity at the end that encourages girls to follow some of the actions suggested. Topic areas include moving more, eating healthy, getting enough sleep, managing stress, and limiting exposure to chemicals. While it was made with girls in mind, it is not exclusively for girls. All kids who snap a picture of their favorite completed page and email it to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. will receive a certificate and, with a parent/guardian's permission, have the image posted on our Girls' New Puberty Facebook page.

Women who have had breast cancer are living longer than ever before. By eight years after a breast cancer diagnosis, people without metastatic disease are more likely to die from heart disease than breast cancer. Breast cancer treatment can increase the risk of some diseases of the heart, arteries and blood vessels, also known as cardiovascular diseases (CVD).

Two cardiologists (heart doctors) who work with cancer patients, a researcher and a breast cancer patient navigator joined Zero Breast Cancer’s October 2022 webinar to offer important information about managing heart health during and after breast cancer treatment. One of the panelists is also a breast cancer survivor. They gave an overview of the current treatments most likely to cause heart problems and what can be done to prevent or limit them.

A new study suggests eating fruits, vegetables and whole grains in adolescence could reduce breast cancer risk later in life. This maybe especially true for pre-menopausal cancer, which affects more women of color and is often more aggressive.

Not Too Late!

Even in early adulthood, for every additional 10g of fiber eaten (~ 1 apple & 2 slices whole wheat bread) there was a 13% drop in risk.

Is your child struggling with anxiety, stress, and frequent tantrums? It could be that they need to get more sleep.

Sleep is an essential bodily function that allows the mind and body to recharge. Not having enough of it can affect a child’s ability to concentrate, process information, and think clearly(1).

Sleep quality plays an essential role in a child’s physical and mental health. Children who often don’t get enough sleep eventually experience a host of other problems(2).

Zero Breast Cancer has just finished producing La guía de las niñas y la nueva pubertad, a Spanish-language translation of our Girls’ New Puberty Eguide! This guide expands upon the messages in our Spanish infographic and YouTube video series. In this interactive webpage, you will find easy tips to support healthy puberty alongside videos, quizzes and links to more resources. 

You might have noticed that our web address, zerobreastcancer.org, is a bit long. When we add on the exact location of our materials, it's much longer! Some of our materials aren't even housed on our website but exist on YouTube and other platforms. In order to make our materials more easily accessible, we have begun using a branded shortlink: zbclink.org. If you go directly to that address, it will state that it is a "Branded Short Domain" without mentioning it belongs to Zero Breast Cancer. However, if you go to a link we have created with it, you will be brought directly to our materials. Here are a few links we have created so far:

Janice Barlow has retired after 15 successful years as Executive Director of Zero Breast Cancer. Under her leadership, the organization has grown from being grassroots to having a regional and national influence and is a respected model for other communities interested in prevention and the elimination of breast cancer.

Breast cancer screening advice can be confusing. A new study in California aims to find a better way forward and is actively recruiting participants. Please consider how you can help. Visit thewisdomstudy.org to learn more.

Las mujeres que han tenido cáncer de mama viven más tiempo que nunca. A los ocho años después de un diagnóstico de cáncer de mama es más probable que las personas sin enfermedad metastásica mueran de una enfermedad del corazón que de cáncer de mama. El tratamiento del cáncer de mama puede aumentar el riesgo de algunas enfermedades del corazón, las arterias y los vasos sanguíneos, también conocidas como enfermedades cardiovasculares (ECV).

This is an exciting time for the participants, research team and partners of the Pathways Study. With over a decade of data on more than 4,000 women who had been diagnosed with breast cancer, the study is primed to have an impact! ZBC’s scientific partners are looking at many factors that influence breast cancer survival and reduce the risk of recurrence. Meanwhile, our Community Advisory Board (CAB) has begun to write articles on how to improve quality of life for those affected by breast cancer. Study results are ready to inform treatment decisions, individual behaviors, and ways to provide necessary support, especially to under-served communities.

This blog is abstracted from an article in the Winter 2019 Pathways newsletter.

Have you heard the term Chemo Brain? Until the last decade, when women reported memory and thinking problems during or after being treated for breast cancer, they were often ignored. Now we know that cancer and cancer treatment can cause these changes and research is progressing on how to help people who have Chemo brain, also known as Cancer-related Cognitive Impairment (CRCI). We can take heart that most of us will recover our brain function and that there are things we can do to deal with memory/thinking problems.

When it comes to breast cancer, men — especially prime caregivers — are often a forgotten part of the equation.

A winner of a ZBC Honor Thy Healer: Healing Partner award, Woody Weingarten, has written a new book, "Rollercoaster: How a man can survive his partner's breast cancer," to remedy that situation. 

Several months ago, our colleagues at Breast Cancer Over Time (BCOT) asked us to help recruit for their study on the Impact of Chemical Exposure on the Human Breast. Like ZBC, BCOT focuses on preventing breast cancer in the next generation. They address the issue by championing and coordinating research into the environmental causes of breast cancer, while ZBC focuses on engaging communities in translating research into actionable steps that can reduce the risk of breast cancer. This study investigates the risks of chemicals in personal care products (PCPs), a topic ZBC actively addresses.

As complementary organizations, promoting BCOT’s study was an obvious decision. While sharing information about the study it, I also discovered that it was personally relevant to me. Read on to learn more about the study and my experience with it.

A new article published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology shows that breast cancer survivors who quit smoking after their diagnosis had a 33 percent lower risk of death as a result of breast cancer than those who continued to smoke.

The statistics are staggering, everyone knows of a person that has been touched by breast cancer and with all the advancements in medicine hopefully they survived. Karl Huie of Pacific Heights Cleaners climbed Mt. Shasta to create awareness for breast cancer as well as raise funds to support Zero Breast Cancer.

Thriving and Breast Cancer: What we've learned from the Pathways study 

Monday, February 6, 2023