Breast Cancer & Overweight

Breast cancer has many other risk factors which are unfortunately not in our hands like a family history which is indeed very frightening but a new research has shown that weight gain of 20 pounds or more, increased risk of breast cancer in postmenopausal women. In pre menopausal women the fat tissue appears to be protecting from the breast cancer. Although fat tissue produces estrogen, obese women tend to ovulate less frequently than leaner women, so they have less estrogen circulating in their bloodstream; such estrogen can fuel the growth of certain types of breast cancer. In older women, however, fat tissue increases breast cancer risk because the estrogen from parts of the body other than the ovaries becomes more important. Weight gain of 21 to 30 pounds since age 18 was associated with a 40 percent increase in risk in women who had never used menopausal hormone therapy. Breast cancer risk double in women who gain 70 pounds or more, compared to women who have stayed within five pounds of te ir 18-year-old weight.

Although there is nothing which shows any relation to the weight gain of the women who took menopausal hormones but that does not mean that there are no risk factors for the women. Studies show that women who are even moderately overweight have the risk of having breast cancer. .