With information pouring in for women to lower their risk of breast cancer with simple lifestyle changes, it seems as though medicine has caught up as well.

A new drug called anastrozole has been shown in a study to lower the risk of breast cancer by 53 percent, NBC News reported. The study researchers told the Breast Cancer Symposium the new drug is more effective than current breast cancer risk reducer tamoxifen and has fewer side effects.

"The efficacy is clearly better and we think the side-effects are better than tamoxifen," said study lead author Dr. Jack Cuzick, of King's College London. "There had been lots of concern about aches and pains. Now we can say most of them have nothing to do with the drug."

Tamoxifen was the first drug introduced to treat breast cancer as well as reduce the risk in others who were deemed highly susceptible. Anastrozole could become the third drug since tamoxifen to do the same.

Common side effects for breast cancer pills can include blood clots, hot flashes and bone aching. Tamoxifen has a similar success rate in treating breast cancer and preventing it in high risk patients, working roughly 50 percent of the time.

The new study, published in the Lancet Medical Journal, examined 3,800 women past menopause age 40-70. Over a five-year period, half were given a placebo pill and the other half received the anastrozole. 2.8 percent of those that took the new drug contracted breast cancer and 5.6 percent of those that took the dummy pill did as well.

"The reported reductions are larger than are those reported for tamoxifen or raloxifene. Therefore, anastrozole is an attractive option for postmenopausal women at increased risk of breast cancer," the researchers wrote.

Dr. Clifford Hudis, a breast cancer expert at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and president of the American Society for Clinical Oncology, said anastrozole's price is another advantage it has, since it is available generically.

"It's important because it's another tool," he said. "It's a widely available tool that's been given to million of people and has a proven safety record."