Women's Hips and Breast Cancer

FitSugar — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 03:30:00 PDT

You wouldn't think that your hips had anything to do with breast cancer, but new research shows a connection. The size and shape of a mother's hips may affect her daughter's risk of breast cancer.

There was a study conducted with 6,370 Finnish women. Those born to mothers with relatively wide hips had a rate of breast cancer that was three times higher than those born to mothers with thinner hips. The rate was nearly seven times higher if the daughter was not the first born.

What constitutes "relatively wide hips"? The widest distance between the wing-like structures at the top of the pelvis is called the intercristal diameter. A woman is more likely to develop breast cancer if her mother's hips have an intercristal diameter of more than 11.8 inches.

Why is that? To find out

Wide, rounded hips mean higher concentrations of estrogen, which may in turn boost a daughter's risk of breast cancer. It happens in the first trimester of pregnancy, when the embryo's developing breast tissue is exposed to their mother's estrogen levels.

While I am not quite sure how to process or use this information, it certainly is interesting. Since we don't choose our mothers, I wouldn't worry too much about this bizarre connection. There's only a higher possibility of breast cancer risk, not a definite certainty. Just keep doing your monthly breast exams, especially if you are not the first born child of a wide hipped mama.

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