Mayo Clinic Health Manager
Get free personalized health guidance for you and your family.
Get Started
About our e-newsletters
- Free e-newsletters
- Mayo Clinic expertise
- We do not share your e-mail address
Housecall, our weekly general-interest e-newsletter, keeps you up to date on a wide variety of health topics with timely, reliable, practical information, recipes, blogs, questions and answers with Mayo Clinic experts and more. Our biweekly topic-specific e-newsletters also include blogs, questions and answers with Mayo Clinic experts, and other useful information that will help you manage your health.
Housecall Archives
Mayo Clinic Housecall
Stay up to date on the latest health information.
What you get
- Free weekly e-newsletter
- Mayo Clinic expertise
- Recipes, tools and other helpful information
- We do not share your e-mail address
Risk factors
By Mayo Clinic staffA risk factor is anything that makes it more likely you'll get a particular disease. But not all risk factors are created equal. Some, such as your age, sex and family history, can't be changed. Others, including smoking and a poor diet, are personal choices over which you have some control.
Having one or even several risk factors doesn't necessarily mean you'll become sick — some men with more than one risk factor never get breast cancer, whereas others with no identifiable risk factors do.
Factors that may make you more susceptible to breast cancer include:
- Age. Breast cancer is most commonly diagnosed in men between the ages of 60 and 70, with an average age range of 65 to 67.
- Family history. If you have a close relative, such as a mother or sister, with breast cancer, you have a greater chance of also developing the disease. About one in five men with breast cancer have a relative who's had it, too. Just because you have a family history of breast cancer doesn't mean it's hereditary, though.
-
Genetic predisposition. In men, nearly 20 percent of breast cancers are inherited. Defects in one of several genes, especially BRCA1 or BRCA2 put you at greater risk of developing breast and prostate cancers. Usually these genes help prevent cancer by making proteins that keep cells from growing abnormally. But if they have a mutation, the genes aren't as effective at protecting you from cancer.
Men with a BRCA2 mutation have a 6 percent lifetime risk of breast cancer — about 100 times more than other men's risk. Inherited mutations in the cell-cycle checkpoint kinase 2 (CHEK-2) gene and the p53 tumor suppressor gene also make it more likely that you'll develop breast cancer.
- Radiation exposure. If you received radiation treatments to your chest as a child or young adult, you're more likely to develop breast cancer later in life.
-
Klinefelter's syndrome. This condition results from an abnormality of the sex chromosomes, X and Y, present at birth (congenital). A male normally has only one X and one Y chromosome. In Klinefelter's syndrome, two or more X chromosomes are present in addition to one Y chromosome. The Y chromosome contains the genetic material that determines the sex of a child and related development.
The extra X chromosome that occurs in Klinefelter's syndrome causes abnormal development of the testicles. As a result, men with this syndrome produce lower levels of certain male hormones — androgens — and more female hormones — estrogens, which can cause noncancerous breast growth (gynecomastia). Men with this condition may be at greater risk of breast cancer, though this connection is still unclear.
- Exposure to estrogen. If you take estrogen-related drugs, such as those used as part of a sex change procedure, you have a much higher risk of breast cancer. Estrogen drugs may also be used in hormone therapy for prostate cancer. Such drugs may slightly increase your risk of breast cancer, though not enough to outweigh the benefit of treating prostate cancer.
- Liver disease. If you have liver disease, such as cirrhosis of the liver, your body's androgen activity may be reduced and its estrogen activity greater. This can increase your risk of gynecomastia and breast cancer.
- Excess weight. Obesity may be a risk factor for breast cancer in men, because it increases the number of fat cells in the body. Fat cells convert androgens into estrogen, increasing the amount of estrogen in your body and, therefore, your risk of breast cancer.
- Excessive use of alcohol. If you drink heavy amounts of alcohol, you have a greater risk of breast cancer.
