Angela Mollard: Thanks for using celebrity platform to talk about cancer for the benefit of others

Whether a princess, supermodel, singer, politician, cricketer’s wife or a TV presenter — thank you for using your platform to talk about cancer, writes Angela Mollard.

Kate, Elle, Olivia, Kylie, Peta, Jane, Edwina – thank you.

Thank you for talking about cancer. Thank you for using your platform – whether that’s as a princess or a supermodel or a singer or a politician or a cricketer’s wife or a TV presenter – to remind us how precious life is. Three of you are no longer with us. Your deaths never dim the starkness of this insidious disease.

Jane McGrath, Kylie Minogue, Olivia Newton-John and Peta Murphy, who I was fortunate enough to interview not long before her death, are the reason I religiously check my breasts. The Princess of Wales, who has not specified what type of cancer she is battling, has reminded us that no one is immune. I couldn’t care less if her post-chemotherapy video is over-choreographed as some have claimed. Rather, how incredible that the most scrutinised woman in the world has shared her most private experience so others may benefit.

Catherine, Princess of Wales, in a video posted to Instagram. Picture: Will Warr/Prince and Princess of Wales/Instagram

And whatever you think of her decision to forgo the advice of 32 doctors and opt for holistic treatment, Elle Macpherson’s belated revelation has again put breast cancer front of mind. Likewise, Channel 7’s Edwina Bartholomew has revealed she has chronic myeloid leukaemia with the pointed observation that women, particularly busy mothers, often neglect health checks.

The sisterhood is superb at helping each other but are we as good at helping ourselves? I ask because we are either wilfully ignoring the information about the lifestyle factors that can lead to cancer or they are woefully under-publicised.

Elle Macpherson. Picture: 60 Minutes

Edwina Bartholomew.

The fact is that there’s a direct link between drinking alcohol and breast cancer. The Alcohol and Drug Foundation reports that not only are 5.8% of breast cancer diagnoses attributable to alcohol but drinking is a significant risk factor for seven other types of cancer.

Yet a breast screening service found only 20% of women knew that alcohol was a risk factor for breast cancer, a statistic that concurs with research by Cancer Council Victoria who reported only 18% of adults who drink identified alcohol as a cause of breast cancer. Further, fewer than 26% were aware that alcohol causes mouth and throat cancer despite the World Health Organisation classifying alcohol as a group one carcinogen over 30 years ago. Its advice is blunt: “There is no safe level of alcohol consumption. The risk increases with each unit of alcohol consumed.”

I do not want to write those statistics because the last thing a cancer patient needs is to feel shame or blame. It’s an indiscriminate disease that comes with so much fear that sufferers will understandably beat themselves up for any perceived poor choice.

But is that reason to bury the facts? If we’re prepared to acknowledge the correlation between poor diet and obesity then surely we should be addressing the lifestyle factors that can contribute to cancer. Data from the World Cancer Research Fund found that of the 387,000 people diagnosed with cancer in the UK between 2019 and 2020, 40 per cent could have been avoided with lifestyle changes.

Jane McGrath. Picture: Brad Newman

Kylie Minogue. Picture: Instagram

Here’s another fact. Not once have me and my friends discussed the link between alcohol and cancer. We talk about everything from menopause symptoms to mental health to weight, diet, exercise and even our stool movements, but never the correlation between the Big C and lifestyle factors, particularly alcohol. Is it fear of judgement? Is it easier to ignore the advice which requires a change in behaviour?

As someone made blissfully happy by a handful of salt and vinegar chips and a bacon sandwich, I wish I didn’t know the science on ultra-processed foods. Learning of their detrimental impact has ruined a lifelong pleasure. Likewise, it’s only recently that I became aware of the extent to which stress might cause cancer. The doctor who gives me a skin cancer check pointed out that high stress impacts both immunity and hormones.

At the very least, as next month heralds Breast Cancer Awareness Month, we need alcohol companies to stop “pink washing” the danger. It’s troubling when $2 from the sale of a bottle of rosé goes to research when the wine itself can cause cancer.

As breast cancer surgeon and survivor Dr Liz O’Riordan wrote in the UK’s The Telegraph, the biggest risk factors for getting breast cancer, being female and getting older, are out of our control (genetics is also up there). What we could control, she pointed out, was our alcohol consumption, exercise, weight and breastfeeding – factors cited in The Lancet Breast Cancer Commission report published in April.

Olivia Newton-John. Picture: Michelle Day

Peta Murphy. Picture: NewsWire/Gary Ramage

As she explained, alcohol is broken down to acetaldehyde, which can stop cells repairing DNA damage – and it increases oestrogen and insulin in our bodies that can make breast cells divide more frequently, increasing the likelihood of a cancer-causing mutation.

When I asked a GP on the best tips for avoiding cancer, her advice was as follows: Exercise consistently, avoid weight gain, limit alcohol, eat lots of plants, reduce stress and maximise sleep.

“So all common sense then,” I responded.

“Yes,” she said. “But surprisingly hard to get people to follow.”

Got a news tip? Email [e-mail]

Originally published as Angela Mollard: Thanks for using celebrity platform to talk about cancer for the benefit of others