Women who put on a bit of weight around the middle during their working years face an increased risk of developing breast cancer later in life, researchers warn today.
A single increase in skirt size in one decade increases the risk by 33%, according the study of almost 93,000 women in England.
The findings come from answers to questions given by women when they joined a major study of ovarian cancer screening in first decade of the 21st century.
The women, who were 64 at the time, were asked to give their current skirt size and what it had been when they were in their 20s.
Women were monitored for about four years and some 1,090 developed breast cancer during this period.
The study found that women who increased their girth by two skirt sizes faced a 77% increased risk of developing breast cancer, the researchers report in BMJ Open.
The findings reflect other studies linking obesity to the risk of breast cancer, thought to be because it increases production of the hormone oestrogen.
The researchers, led by Professor Usha Menon, of University College, London, UK, say: “Although the exact mechanism of these relationships need to be better understood, there is a suggestion that body fat around the waist is more metabolically active than adipose tissue elsewhere."
Association of skirt size and postmenopausal breast cancer risk in older women: a cohort study within the UK Collaborative Trial of Ovarian Cancer Screening (UKCTOCS) BMJ Open 25 September 2014; doi: 10.1136/nmjopen-2014-005400
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