Oh No! Bad News for My Popularity

You might remember this news about how neglecting the housework prevents asthma. Everyone loved that post. I loved that post. It justified writing this blog while I should be either doing laundry or focussing on my career.
The no housework honeymoon is over.

According to a study reported in The Times via the Unison.ie site (free registration required), doing between 16.1 and 17.7 hours of housework each week reduces the risk of developing breast cancer.

• Pre-menopausal women who did housework were found to be about 30% less likely to develop breast cancer than pre-menopausal women who did none.
• Meanwhile, post-menopausal women who did housework were found to be about 20% less likely to develop the disease than post-menopausal women who did none.
• The researchers analysed data from 218,169 women from nine European countries, with an age range of 20 to 80.

My heart is breaking with this news. However, I have hope that it won’t bear up under analysis. First of all, the article doesn’t say who the researchers were or what health agency or research university they were affiliated with. Secondly, and I have to assume this based on the amount of time spent cleaning, maybe these women are healthier because they’re using effort and excercise to clean rather than chemical cleansers that contain carcinogenic substances. Then again, many women would rather scrub floors than do yoga.

Damn. Now I have to go clear the breakfast table and load the dishwasher. Then again, maybe I should let the apple juice dribbles harden a little to give me an extra work out.

EDIT: The Scotsman version of the story says the research was published in the medical journal Cancer Epidemiology Biomarkers and Prevention an unfortunately very, very legitimate publication.