Mom’s Hip Size Indicates Breast Cancer Risk for Daughter
October 10, 2007 by Kristen King
Filed under Women's Health
How’s this for interesting: A new study has found a link between hip size in moms and breast cancer in daughters.
In a study of the maternity records of more than 6,000 women, David J.P. Barker, M.D., Ph.D., and Kent Thornburg, Ph.D., of Oregon Health & Science University discovered a strong correlation between the size and shape of a woman’s hips and her daughter’s risk of breast cancer. Wide, round hips, the researchers postulated, represent markers of high sex hormone concentrations in the mother, which increase her daughter’s vulnerability to breast cancer.
A woman’s hips are shaped at puberty when the growth of the hip bones is controlled by sex hormones but is also influenced by the level of nutrition. Every woman has a unique sex hormone profile which is established at puberty and persists through her reproductive life. The study’s findings show for the first time that the pubertal growth spurt of girls is strongly associated with the risk of breast cancer in their daughters.
… A woman’s vulnerability to breast cancer, the study found, was greater if her mother’s “intercristal diameter” — the widest distance between the wing-like structures at the top of the hip bone — was more than 30 centimeters, or 11.8 inches. The risk also was higher if these wing-like structures were round. The breast cancer risk was 2.5 times higher for the daughters of women in whom the widest distance was more than 3 centimeters greater than the distance at the front.
Contents © Copyright 2007 Kristen King
