Jolie is just one of a number of celebrities who have opened up about a scary gene known to elevate the risk of cancer.
That gene is called the BRCA gene. And if breast or ovarian cancer run in your family, you’ve undoubtedly heard of it.
You see, every woman has BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes. However, not all women have mutations in these genes, according to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). That said, the CDC reports that an estimated one out of 500 women in the United States has a mutation in one of these genes.
Genetically speaking, parents play a role in this process. In fact, if your parents have a mutated gene, your chance of having the same mutation is 50 percent, according to the CDC. Though this does not mean that you will definitely get cancer, the CDC says that it markedly increases the risk.
So how many women with this gene really get cancer?
“About 50 out of 100 women with a BRCA1 or BRCA2 gene mutation will get breast cancer by the time they turn 70 years old, compared to only 7 out of 100 women in the general United States population,” according to the CDC. And “about 30 out of 100 women with a BRCA1 or BRCA2 gene mutation will get ovarian cancer by the time they turn 70 years old, compared to fewer than 1 out of 100 women in the general U.S. population.”