Christina Applegate on the perks (and the...

Actress and breast cancer survivor Christina Applegate has spoken out about her life and her body six years after she underwent a double mastectomy.

The 42-year old mother-of-one, based in California, says that breast reconstruction has improved by leaps and bounds since 2008, when she had implants fitted after her surgery to remove both breasts.

'I’ve seen [breast implants] on some girls recently where I’m like, "Those are the best looking boobs I’ve seen",' she tells ELLE.com. 'So it can be a positive thing...You can get better boobs than you had before, if you so choose.'
 

Ms Applegate - who has a three-year-old daughter, Sadie, with her musician husband Martyn LeNoble - mentions that her own breast reconstruction results were 'very different' from those she sees today.

'You start to live with those boobs, and it’s your reminder every day that this thing happened to you, unfortunately, and it’s a part of your body that’s changed drastically, and embracing that is difficult sometimes,' she said.

When asked what she thought about the worrying rise in the cases of cancer in the U.S., Ms Applegate remarked: 'It’s growing at such a rapid pace and it’s getting into women who are much younger because of the environment and what is in our food.

'It’s not the cancer getting stronger; it’s that we are being poisoned,’ she said, adding that her own home is ‘purely organic’ when it comes to food. ‘I know it’s expensive, but find a way,' she said.

Still, a good lifestyle can't immunize you against all the risks. Ms Applegate learned she had the BRCA1 gene in 2008, just as Angelina Jolie did after her, in 2013.

This gene is hereditary and puts women at much higher risk of developing breast and ovarian cancer.

'I have talked to women who do yoga, who are vegan, who have never smoked and/or never drank a day in their life but they have Stage IV breast cancer,' Ms Applegate points out.

'Sometimes it’s just a fluke. Sometimes it’s just some strange inflammation in the body.

'One cell - one cell - goes cuckoo and everything changes.'

Ms Applegate's breast cancer was detected very early. Due to her family history of the disease, she had been having mammograms every year from the age of 30.

On one occasion, her doctors told her that her breasts were too dense to get a proper look and she was advised to undergo an MRI to 'see deeper.'

It's a decision that could well have saved her life, and Ms Applegate concedes she was lucky to be able to afford further testing, which costs thousands of dollars.

She then completed a course of radiation therapy to treat the cancer in her left breast, and after further testing, she finally learned she had the BRCA1 gene.

The best preventative method in the incidence of this gene is to have both breasts entirely removed, a decision Ms Applegate made quickly.

Speaking to Oprah in 2008 just after her mastectomy, Ms Applegate said: 'It came on really fast. It was one of those things that I woke up and it felt so right,' she says. 'I was just going to let them go.'

Before her surgery, the Anchorman star organised her ever first nude photo shoot to commemorate her body before it changed forever.

'I made sure that I have close-up photographs of them from every angle so I can kind of remember them,' she said.

These days, Ms Applegate runs her self-founded nonprofit, Right Action for Women; a donation-based charity which helps provide financial assistance for women to undergo MRI's and other testing.

This month, the organization has teamed up with fitness brand ASICS to run a line of pink workout clothes and sneakers, with at least $100,000 of profits pledged to the charity.

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