Weight gain after menopause ups breast cancer risk
Posted on: Tuesday, 11 July 2006, 22:25 CDT
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Women who gain weight after menopause increase their risk of developing invasive breast cancer. Conversely, weight loss reduces the risk, researchers report.
The findings come from an analysis of data from the Nurses Health Study, published in the July 12 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Dr. A. Heather Eliassen, from Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, and her team point out that many studies have established the relationship between weight gain and increased breast cancer risk. However, the few studies that evaluated the effect of weight change after menopause have yielded conflicting results.
They therefore studied these relationships in a group of 49,514 women between 30 and 55 years old who were premenopausal in 1976, had no history of cancer, and became postmenopausal or underwent removal of both ovaries over the course of the study.
At follow-up in 2002, there were 2376 cases of invasive breast cancer among postmenopausal subjects whose weight had been documented.
Dr. Eliassen and her team accounted for other risk factors for breast cancer and found that the risk of developing breast cancer for women who gained 25 kilograms or more since age 18 was 45 percent higher than for those whose weight remained stable. The risk was increased by 18 percent for women who gained 10 kg or more after menopause.
Among women who lost at least 10 kg before menopause, the risk dropped 16 percent, while women who lost at least 10 kg after menopause decreased their risk by 23 percent. For those who maintained their weight loss after menopause, the risk dropped by 57 percent.
However, few women lose weight after menopause, the researchers point out. Therefore, "women should avoid weight gain throughout adult life rather than count on losing weight after menopause," Eliassen's group advises, to cut the risk of breast cancer.
SOURCE: Journal of the American Medical Association, July 12, 2006.
Source: REUTERS
Related Articles
- High-risk women remove breasts, ovaries
- New MRI Technique May Mean Fewer Breast Biopsies In High-risk Women
- High-risk women should get breast cancer MRI: study
- High-risk Women Should Get Breast Cancer MRI
- NICE Initial Recommendation: One Step Closer to Backing Aromatase Inhibitor Treatment for Women With Early Breast Cancer
- Drug switch helps women with early breast cancer
- Novartis Submits Applications in U.S. And Europe for Femara As Adjuvant Treatment for Postmenopausal Women With Early Breast Cancer
- Women Warned Hormone Therapy Can Increase Risk of Womb Cancer
- New Cancer Center Clinic Targets High-Risk Women
 |
 |
User Comments (0)
RSS Feeds