Max Pemberton: Breast cancer is still a risky business Such complex decisions are not unique to familial breast cancer. I have a friend who, while pregnant, was diagnosed with pre-cancerous cells in the cervix. After much debate, she decided not to undergo treatment because of the risk to her pregnancy. She is a surgeon and took a calculated gamble. For her, the relatively small chance of developing cervical cancer was not enough for her to jeopardise her pregnancy, and indeed future pregnancies, as the treatment can damage the cervix. The risk paid off and she now has a three-year-old son, is pregnant again and was recently given the all clear by the gynaecologist. But what if things had been different? What if her son was now without a mother? Medicine doesn't have the clear, definitive answers that we crave. It can't always instruct - it can only present the risks and options and then it is down to the individual to decide what level of risk they are willing to tolerate. Sometimes, with increasing knowledge come ever more challenging decisions. Quick-fix anxiety pills can do more harm than good It is a tragic irony that those who find their lives crippled by insomnia or anxiety all too often discover that the tablets dished out to them do far more harm than good. A group of medicines - the benzodiazepines, which include drugs such as temazepam and diazepam (Valium) - have come under increasing scrutiny, and doctors were recently warned to avoid prescribing them if possible. The National Treatment Agency for Substance Misuse, the Royal College of Psychiatrists and the Department of Health were among 17 organisations involved in producing the consensus statement. This is a particular bugbear of mine, having seen so many people become helplessly hooked on these pills. While they can be useful in the very short term - for no more than two weeks - too often, both doctors and patients want a quick fix and so they are dispensed on repeat prescription. But people can become rapidly addicted to this class of drugs. When they stop taking them they face severe rebound symptoms. The far safer option for dealing with anxiety and sleep problems is psychotherapy, which is of course costly and time-consuming. But a little bit of money and time spent at the beginning could save a lot of grief and heartache later on. Call me sniffy, but ... I was amazed to read in the Journal of Investigative Dermatology that around one million of us have a genetic variant that means we don't produce body odour. Yet the majority of these lucky people still use a deodorant. What I found really surprising, though, is that only five per cent of the rest, who do have the potential for body odour, fail to use a deodorant. And as someone who uses the Tube every day, I find it very hard to believe. Max Pemberton's 'The Doctor Will See You Now" is published by Hodder. To order, call Telegraph Books on 0844 871 1515 or visit books.telegraph.co.uk Email Max at max.pemberton @telegraph.co.uk