Prospective Study of Relative Weight, Height, and Risk of Breast Cancer

Adolescence and breast carcinoma risk

“…We found that taller adult height was only associated with postmenopausal risk of breast carcinoma; others 23,38 reported that taller adult height similarly increased postmenopausal risk but reduced the risk of premenopausal cancer. 23 Several authors 29,38,39 have previously reported that subjects from the NHS with higher BMI at age 18 years had a lower risk of breast carcinoma; this was consistent with our findings and similar to the findings of other studies 23,40 -43 that evaluated adolescent weight. Although body fatness at age 20 years appeared to be protective, our post-hoc analyses suggested that becoming thinner, rather than fatter, between ages 10 and 20 years was associated with lower risk.…”

“…This is consistent with previous reports from this cohort that young adult BMI is inversely related to risk of breast carcinoma. 29,38,39 The fitting of multivariate Cox models did not substantially alter our findings (Table 3). Because body fatness at all 3 ages were in the multivariate model together and because they were fairly highly correlated with one another (Table 2b), their tests for trend became nonsignificant.…”

Body mass and stage of breast cancer at diagnosis

“…This finding is consistent with those of some previous studies. 17,[25][26][27][28] However, it is inconsistent with findings in other previous studies, which show that obesity is associated with both tumor size and node status. 16,23,24 There may be several reasons for the observed association between body mass and stage of breast cancer at diagnosis.…”

“…In addition, some studies report that both large tumor size and lymph node involvement are associated with higher body weight, 16,23,24 whereas other studies report that tumor size, but not lymph node involvement are associated with higher body weight. 17,[25][26][27][28] Furthermore, 1 study has reported that lymph node involvement, but not tumor size, is associated with obesity. 29 In obese women with larger breasts, palpation for lumps may be more difficult, resulting in delay in detection and diagnosis of breast cancer.…”

Risk of breast cancer in young women in relation to body size and weight gain in adolescence and early adulthood

“…A recent meta-analysis of 23 studies of current body mass index (BMI) and risk of premenopausal breast cancer concluded that, although there was substantial heterogeneity in the results of these studies, BMI was inversely related to risk (Ursin et al, 1995). Research on breast cancer in young women is inconsistent in demonstrating whether risk is reduced with greater adiposity in early adulthood (ages 18Ð25) (London et al, 1989;Lund et al, 1990) or with subsequent weight gain (Taioli et al, 1995;Mannisto et al, 1996). There has been little research on effects of adolescent body size (Brinton and Swanson, 1992;Ursin et al, 1994).…”