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| Breastfeeding protects your breasts |
Isabel M. Estrada Portales
06/10/2005
Breastfeeding and having large numbers of children are the key to
the developing world's low rates of breast cancer compared with Western
countries such as Britain, according to new research published in
The Lancet.
The study found that the longer women breastfeed, the more they are
protected from the disease. This effect is over and above the protection
gained from having children.
The researchers from Cancer Research UK believe their work is an important
step forward in understanding how and why breast cancer develops.
If scientists can understand the mechanism, it will help focus research
toward developing drugs to replicate the protective effect.
They pooled data from 47 separate studies from 30 different countries,
involving 50,000 women with breast cancer and nearly 100,000 women
who did not have the disease.
They found that for every year that a woman breastfeeds, her risk
of breast cancer goes down by 4.3 per cent, on top of the 7 per cent
reduction for each child she has. If women breastfed each of their
children for an extra six months, it could prevent over 1,000 cases
of the disease in Britain each year.
Over the time period that women in the study would have been having
children, women from the developing world breastfed for an average
of about two years per child and averaged around six or seven children.
By comparison, the average Western woman breastfed for just two or
three months per child and had about two or three children.
Lead researcher Professor Valerie Beral, of the Cancer Research UK
Epidemiology Unit in Oxford, says: "The results of this study
are a major step forward in our understanding of why breast cancer
incidence is so high in developed countries. It's long been known
that breast cancer is common in situations where women have few children
and breastfeed for short periods. We've shown that these factors alone
account for much of the high rates of breast cancer in these settings."
If British reproductive habits mirrored those of developing countries,
it is estimated that women's risk of breast cancer by the age of 70
would fall from 6.3 per 100 women to 2.7 per 100 women. Two thirds
of the decrease would be a result of longer breastfeeding and one
third because of the increase in number of children.
Fellow researcher Dr Gillian Reeves, also of the Cancer Research UK
Epidemiology Unit, says: "To expect that substantial reductions
in breast cancer incidence could be brought about by women returning
to the pattern of childbearing and breastfeeding that typified most
societies until a century or so ago is unrealistic. But even if women
in the West were to breastfeed each of their children for an extra
six months, this could prevent five per cent of breast cancers each
year.
Hispanics have lower incidence and mortality rates from all cancers,
and also from the four most common: breast, prostate, colorectal and
lung cancer, acording to the American Cancer Society.
However, the disminution of the mortality rate due to breast cancer,
cervical cancer and prostate cancer was lower among Hispanics than
among the non Hispanic population from 1990 to 1997. The new cases
of breast cancer are increasing among Hispanics, who receives a diagnosis
at a much avanced stage and therefore have lower survival rates than
whites, according to the Health and Human Services Department.
This can be explained in part due to lack of prevention and health
insurance, since the American Cancer Society affirms that Hispanics
are less likely to receive exams such as mamograms, the Pap smear,
among others.
On the other hand, data from Minority Nurse indicate that 64 percent
of the Hispanic women report they breast feed their children during
the first months after birth. |
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