United States: Excessive weight increase coupled with delayed or skipped motherhood triples the future danger of breast cancer in a young woman, a new study finds, as reported by HealthDay.
Key Risk Factors Identified
If women had the following, they were 2.7 times at risk of developing breast cancer.
Put on more than 30% of weight after the age of 20.
Delayed their first child until past 30 years, or did not have children at all.
“Our study is the first to establish how weight gain and age of first birth interact to affect a woman’s risk of breast cancer,” lead researcher Lee Malcomson, a research associate at the University of Manchester in the U.K., said in a news release.
“It is vital that general practitioners are aware that the combination of gaining a significant amount of weight and having a late first birth — or, indeed, not having children — greatly increases a woman’s risk of the disease,” he said.
