Don't wanna lose a boob

I'm not being insensitive or flippant; it is real and it is scary. Do your checks, ladies.

HONG KONG, Oct 25 (AFP) - The image is stark, the message loud and clear: two alarm bells positioned over the naked chest of a faceless woman urge those in Hong Kong to be aware of the dangers of breast cancer.

Until now, the women in this southern Chinese city of seven million largely Cantonese people have not felt the need to worry about breast cancer as the incidence of the potentially fatal disease has been historically low.

But a rapid move towards a Westernised diet and lifestyle in Hong Kong and much of the rest of Asia has seen with it an alarming rise in the number of reported cases of breast cancer.

The death last week of Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi's wife from the disease and the diagnosis of Australian pop superstar Kylie Minogue earlier this year helped shatter the illusion that the disease is alien to the region.

"Breast cancer is on the rise in Asia and that is most pronounced in the Westernised urban cities of Asia - Hong Kong, Singapore and Manila," said Dr William Foo, director of radiology and oncology at Hong Kong's Baptist University Hospital and medical adviser to the Hong Kong Cancer Fund.

A recent study by Foo showed that the incidence of breast cancer in Asia has risen steeply in the past two decades.

Measured by the number of confirmed reports per 100,000 women per year, the rate has risen in the former British colony from 30 in the 1980s to 40 today, an increase of 30 percent in 20 years.

While that is still lower than the 90-100 cases per 100,000 recorded in Western countries, the trend is up and the rate of increase is getting steeper.

"If we look at cities like those in Vietnam, which are less Westernised, the rate is something like 10 - it's much much lower," said Foo.

The expert blames two aspects of Western culture for the increase: diet and the timing of childbirth.

Western diets typically contain more meat, more fat and less vegetables, he says. In terms of child-birth, Western women tend to have babies later in life than their Asian counterparts and a higher percentage have none at all.

"It's to do with an imbalance in hormones, that's the only explanation medical science is able to come up with so far," he says.

Post-WWII Hong Kong has seen rapid industrialisation, rising wealth and a more Westernised lifestyle, including a rise in obesity as fatty fast food has grown in popularity.

The changing role of women, in which many more are devoting themselves to a career instead of traditional family-making, has meant the city's birth rate has dropped to less than one baby for every women of child-baring age - the lowest in the world.

Foo says one positive aspect of increasing Westernisation has been a growing awareness of the risk of breast cancer among women.

"There is no longer any cultural taboo against discussion of such matters, certainly in Hong Kong society, and we are seeing more and more women coming to us with early stage cancer, not the later stage form as before," he said.

Badawi's wife Endon Mahmood used her illness to increase awareness of the disease in Malaysia, where Women's Minister Shahrizat Jalil said earlier that 65 percent of women aged between 15 to 49 years had never done a breast self-examination.

Such reluctance among women to examine themselves has been attributed to conservative traditions in mainly-Muslim Malaysia, where the discussion of issues like sex or breast checks is taboo.

Endon's openness in discussing her illness also bucked a traditional trend of secrecy and silence usually employed by the government over such "sensitive issues" in the past.