Breast cancer is one of the most common cancers amongst women in India and worldwide. A recent study about women who lost weight at 50 and maintained a healthy weight thereon showed a decreased risk of breast cancer as compared to women with more weight. This study is therefore a way to help women work around prevention of cancer.
The study is published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. In USA over two third of the adult women are overweight or obese. The study was carried out by the researchers at the American Cancer Society, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health using the Pooling Project of Prospective Studies of Diet and Cancer (DCPP) in order to determine the connection between sustained loss of weight after menopause or later adulthood and the risk of breast cancer.
The study involved over 180,000 women over 50 years of age across 10 studies. The sample size is huge and this analysis is the first to assess the breast cancer risk impact over sustained weight loss. The study did examine weight three times across 10 years period viz. at the time of enrollment, post five years and again four years thereafter.
The results showed that women who were able to reduce more weight in later adulthood and sustained it were able to lower the risk of breast cancer. The women who were able to shed around 9 kg’s of weight and then game some of it but not all did show a significant reduction in breast cancer risk.
The lead author of the study Lauren Teras, PhD says ‘These findings may be a strong motivator for the two thirds of American women who are overweight to lose some of that weight. Even if you gain weight after age 50, it is not too late to lower your risk of breast cancer”.
*Sourced from Internet
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