Angelina Jolie carries the breast cancer gene.

Angelina Jolie is famous for a lot of reasons, but the most notable one are her physical features.  She is a beautiful woman, especially in her younger days before she got too thin, and her lips are only one part of her appeal.  Another part of her appeal is now permanently gone.  Angelina Jolie has had her breasts removed and rebuilt by surgeons.  As it turns out, blood tests revealed that she carries a mutation of the BRCA1 gene that substantially increases her breast cancer risk, so she decided to do something about that before it became a problem.  Any kind of surgery is bad, but a double mastectomy is a whole lot better than chemotheraphy.

“My doctors estimated that I had an 87 percent risk of breast cancer and a 50 percent risk of ovarian cancer, although the risk is different in the case of each woman,” Jolie wrote. “Once I knew that this was my reality, I decided to be proactive and to minimize the risk as much I could.  I made a decision to have a preventive double mastectomy.”  Jolie added, “For any woman reading this, I hope it helps you to know you have options.  I want to encourage every woman, especially if you have a family history of breast or ovarian cancer, to seek out the information and medical experts who can help you through this aspect of your life, and to make your own informed choices.”

Jolie’s mother, movie producer Marcheline Bertrand, died of ovarian cancer at age 56 in 2007; Jolie is 37 years old.  She underwent the double masectomy and reconstructive surgeries at the Pink Lotus Breast Center in Los Angeles over a period of three months.  Jolie says she went through the procedure to spare her own children the pain of worrying about their mother’s cancer status.

Tags: angelina jolie, angelina jolie double mastectomy, angelina jolie has her breasts removed, angelina jolie gets a double mastectomy, angelina jolie breast cancer gene, breast cancer gene, unusual health news, celebrities, hollywood, BRCA1 gene, marcheline bertrand, pink lotus breast center, los angeles, california,  mastectomy

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