Alba's Focus on Family
- Actress Jessica Alba, 39, shares that she stepped away from her career to focus on family.
- Alba’s father was recently diagnosed with thyroid cancer and is undergoing radiation to treat his disease.
- Common treatments for thyroid cancer include surgery, hormone therapy, radioactive iodine, radiation, and chemotherapy.
Alba, 39, gave birth to her daughter Honor in 2008, and decided health and happiness was a priority. She tells Romper magazine she “couldn’t go back to what I was doing before and be authentic. I just couldn’t. I just didn’t care about it anymore the same way. It was something bigger.”
Read MoreAlba’s Family’s Cancer Struggles
“My mother had cancer at a really young age,” Alba says. “Many women in my family have passed from various different cancers, none of them genetic. She also shares that she grew up with “chronic illness.”While the cancers in Alba’s family weren’t genetic, there are genetic factors that can impact cancer incidences. For instance, the BRCA1 and BRCA2 gene mutations, which can be genetically inherited, increase a person’s risk of developing breast and ovarian cancer. And Lynch Syndrome is an inherited syndrome that increases a person's risk of developing certain types of cancer, including colorectal cancer. So for people with a family history of cancer, it can benefit you to do genetic testing to assess your own cancer risk.
Why Genetic Testing Is Important To Detect Ovarian Cancer
Understanding Thyroid Cancer
Alba’s dad is currently battling thyroid cancer and undergoing radiation therapy to treat his disease. Treatment options for this disease include surgery, hormone therapy, radioactive iodine, radiation and in some cases chemotherapy.
According to the American Cancer Society (ACS), approximately 44,280 new cases of thyroid cancer will be diagnosed this year, and there will be approximately 2,200 deaths from thyroid cancer. This disease is most commonly diagnosed at a younger age than other adult cancers, and women are three times more likely to develop thyroid cancer.
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