Oscar-winner Renee Zellweger was given the Courage Award from the Women’s Cancer Research Fund (WCRF) on Thursday night for her work in raising cancer awareness. The fund’s annual An Unforgettable Evening, a Hollywood A-list glitzy affair, puts funding and research for breast cancer in the spotlight.
View this post on InstagramRead More RELATED: Outrage As New Study Finds Some of the Deadliest Cancers Receive Least Funding for ResearchWhile Zellweger’s speech has yet to be posted online, several stars on the red carpet spoke out about breast cancer. Some emphasized the same message: Get checked.
“Don’t be afraid” of getting a mammogram, said Kyle Richards of “The Housewives of Beverly Hills,” whose mother died of breast cancer. Her mother held off a mammogram for five years, Richards said, because she was nervous. “Don’t be afraid — be afraid not to go,” she said.
“Every year and every day there is new information” about breast cancer, said actor Rita Wilson, one of the evening’s four honorary co-chairs. But “early detection is the most important thing. … A breast self-exam is still really important — and getting a mammogram regularly.”
In April of 2015, Wilson said that she had undergone a double mastectomy and reconstructive surgery after a breast cancer diagnosis.
Wilson took to social media to pose with Nick Jonas and to thank Zellweger for her “beautiful speech.”
Renee Zellweger and Breast Cancer
Breast cancer, Zellweger has told various outlets, has affected many people close to her, including family members.
"My grandmother died from it and two aunts were also diagnosed with it but it was after a close friend's diagnosis ten years ago that I saw how brutal breast cancer can be, how it can take over someone's life, and yet they can fight it with dignity and survive it that's inspirational," she told Glamour.com.
Zellweger has supported Stand Up to Cancer in support of her publicist and close friend, Nanci Ryder, a breast cancer survivor (who now has ALS).
In interviews, Zellweger has mentioned a breast cancer scare of her own. After getting lumps checked that she found during a self-examination, she was told they were fibroadenomas, the most common type of benign breast tumors.
When Should I Get a Mammogram?
There is a wide consensus that women should have annual mammograms between the ages of 45 and 54. But there is some disagreement among doctors as to whether mammograms are beneficial for women between the ages of 40 and 45. This is an option you should, of course, discuss with your own doctor.
Dr. Connie Lehman, chief of Breast Imaging Division at Massachusetts General Hospital
If you're older than 55, you can choose to continue your annual mammograms or opt to have one every two years, says Dr. Connie Lehman, Chief of the Breast Imaging Clinic at Massachusetts General Hospital and professor of Radiology at Harvard Medical School. If you're post-menopausal, Dr. Lehman says you may be able to reduce the frequency of your mammograms to every other year.
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