Obesity in post menopausal women with a family history of breast cancer: prevalence and risk awareness

Abstract

Background: Obesity and physical activity are modifiable risk factors in the development of postmenopausal breast cancer. The aim of this study was to assess the level of awareness and prevalence of these factors in women attending family history clinics.

Obesity, Diabetes, the Cardiorenal Syndrome, and Risk for Cancer

“…Obesity has been consistently shown to increase the rates of breast cancer in postmenopausal women by 30-50% by increasing serum concentrations of free estradiol [116,117] . Both BMI and weight gain are more strongly related to the risk of breast cancer among postmenopausal women who have never used hormone replacement therapy, compared with women who have used hormones [118] . Furthermore, abdominal adiposity has been found to be positively associated with a higher risk of breast cancer in postmenopausal women, this relationship being stronger among those without hormone replacement therapy than among those with hormone replacement therapy [119] .…”

High Visfatin Expression in Breast Cancer Tissue Is Associated with Poor Survival

“…Therefore, it is critical to discover prognostic factors as well as therapeutic targets for breast cancer. Previous studies clearly showed that obesity is correlated with the risk and prognosis of breast cancer, particularly postmenopausal breast cancer (1)(2)(3). Adipocytokines constitute a group of polypeptide growth factors and cytokines produced exclusively, or substantially, by preadipocytes and mature adipocytes in white adipose tissue (4,5).…”

Moderate physical activity and breast cancer risk: the effect of menopausal status

“…Consistently, most studies that have assessed the relationship between physical activity and breast cancer risk have found a stronger effect in postmenopausal women [14]. An interaction was found also by John et al, however, the magnitude of the effect was smaller in post-(OR = 0.70; 95% CI 0.59-0.94) than in premenopausal women (OR = 0.67; 95% CI 0.46-0.96) [7]. Differences in magnitude among studies can be explained by differences in the measurement of physical activity [42][43][44][45].…”

“…Overall, the median of weekly hours of vigorous-intensity physical activity was 0 (interquartile range 0-1). In contrast, a study carried out in British women found that at least 15% of postmenopausal women exercised for more than 4 h per week [7].…”

“…Moderate-and vigorous-intensity physical activities confer a nearly equal decrease in breast cancer risk [5]. On average, Latina women spend more time on household [6] physical activities than Caucasian women [7]. These activities have been categorized as being moderate-intensity [8].…”