Breast Cancer Survivor Reaches New Heights for Breast Cancer Prevention

Team of Breast Cancer Survivors and Supporters Will Take on California’s Mt. Shasta July 10

[ClickPress, Thu Jul 06 2006] At the young age of 30 and with no family history of the disease, Anu Gupta doesn’t seem like a typical breast cancer survivor. Yet as breast cancer rates climb, her story becomes less unusual.

On July 10, Gupta and her breast surgeon, Dr. Susan Kutner, 52, will attempt Northern California’s Mt. Shasta to raise money to help eliminate the environmental causes of breast cancer, which may contribute to the development of half of all breast cancers. This includes cancers in young women who have no other known risk factors for the disease, such as family history, smoking and obesity.

The two women will climb with a team of 37 others from across the country organized by the Breast Cancer Fund. Many of the climbers are women living with breast cancer. Others have family members or friends who have confronted the disease. For most climbers, the expedition is an expression of finding strength through adversity.

“After treatment, I didn't want breast cancer to be [the focus] of my life,” said Gupta, of Los Gatos, Calif., who finished treatment for stage II breast cancer on September 26. “I thought the climb would be a great challenge, to prove to myself that physically and emotionally I was past it.”

Kutner, who is from San Francisco, has signed on for her fourth Climb Against the Odds. In past years, she has been an integral member of the team and taken on responsibility for monitoring her teammates’ health, particularly those still in treatment or recently finished.

This year’s Climb Against the Odds expedition is the seventh major mountain climb organized by the San Francisco-based Breast Cancer Fund. Previous expeditions include Mt. Aconcagua, Argentina (1995); Mt. McKinley, Alaska (1998); Mt. Fuji, Japan (2000), Mt. Shasta, Calif. (2003 and 2004) and Mt. Rainier, Wash. (2005).

Since the 1960s, a woman’s lifetime risk of breast cancer more than tripled in the United States, to one in seven today. As many as 50 percent of breast cancer cases remain unexplained by traditionally-accepted risk factors; scientists increasingly believe many cases are linked to environmental factors.

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Founded in 1992, the Breast Cancer Fund’s mission is to identify and eliminate the environmental—and other preventable—causes of the disease. The organization publishes a peer-reviewed report of research linking environmental exposures to breast cancer, available at www.breastcancerfund.org/evidence.

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