Weight loss and breast cancer closely linked - Northern Voices Online

Weight loss and breast cancer are closely linked. Breast cancer is known to afflict more women who are obese and suffer from excessive weight.

In fact a recent study shows that those women who suffer from excess weight problem are many times more likely to suffer from breast cancer than those women who have average weight. The study suggests that obesity contributes more to the most common form of breast cancer than alcohol or smoking.

Higher the weight among women, higher the chances of them suffering from breast cancer. Disproportionately high weight compared to body mass index affects female sex hormone oestrogen. These hormones are responsible for creating three-quarters of breast tumours.

The report says that experts went through data on almost 6,300 post-menopausal women from 13 different studies looking for the chief factors affecting sex hormones. Body Mass Index (BMI) scores, which measure weight in relation to height, had the biggest impact on sex hormones, especially oestrogen.

The women who drank excessively and those women who smoked 15 or more cigarettes a day had higher chances of being inflicted with breast cancer. But the obese women had higher chances than the two above mentioned groups of women.

The report funded by Cancer Research UK was released a few weeks ago in British Journal of Cancer. Co-author Dr Gillian Reeves, from Oxford University, said "Our study shows that changes in hormone levels might explain the association of established risk factors such as obesity with breast cancer risk.

He went on to say "Other studies have found that weight and alcohol can affect hormone levels, and this research confirms and adds to these findings and provides more information about how breast cancer develops…There's already strong evidence that drinking alcohol and being overweight can increase the risk of breast cancer, but it's important to understand why these links exist".

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02 Sep, 2011

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