Lose weight to cut breast cancer risk
GOING on a diet could slash middle-aged women’s risk of breast cancer by a third, research has shown.
Protection against developing the disease, in a study of more than 180,000 women over 50, increased the more weight they lost – especially for those who were not using hormone replacement therapy.
Women, who lost 20lb or more, had a 26 per cent lower risk – and this rose to 32 per cent for those not taking HRT.
Women who put some, but not all, of the weight back on were still 23 per cent less likely to develop breast cancer compared with those whose weight was constant.
The women who lost 10lb to 20lb had a 16 per cent lower risk, while those losing 4.4lb to 10lb had 13 per cent risk reduction. Lead author Dr Lauren Teras, an epidemiologist at the American Cancer Society, said: “Our results suggest even a modest amount of sustained weightloss is associated with lower breast cancer risk for women over 50.”
It is one of the biggest studies of its kind to date.The previous research looked into weight gain and breast cancer in younger women. Dr Teras, whose findings were published in the Journal Of The National Cancer Institute, added: “This shows it is not too late to lower your risk of breast cancer if you have gained weight after 50.
“Prevention of the most common cancer worldwide may be a particularly motivating factor for overweight women.
“Our finding of a stronger association for non-HRT users was not unexpected.”
Her team pooled data from 10 previous studies from across the world that followed participants over long periods of time.
Four in five cases of breast cancer occur after the menopause, and having a high body mass index, a measure of obesity, is known to be linked to the disease.