(Press-News.org) Having a family history of breast cancer can lead some women to wonder if the risk is out of their control. However, a study of more than 85,000 postmenopausal women, published in BioMed Central's open access journal Breast Cancer Research, observed that regular physical activity, maintaining a healthy weight, and drinking less alcohol lowers breast cancer risk for those with and without a family history of the disease.
The University of Rochester Medical Center study is good news for women who have a close relative with breast cancer and fear that no matter what they do, it won't matter, said lead author Robert E. Gramling, M.D., D.Sc., associate professor of Family Medicine, and Community and Preventive Medicine at URMC.
"It's important to note that a family history of breast cancer can arise in part due to shared unhealthy behaviors that have been passed down for generations," Gramling said. "Untangling the degree to which genes, environments, and behaviors contribute to the disease is difficult. But our study shows that engaging in a healthy lifestyle can help women, even when familial predisposition is involved."
Gramling analyzed data from the Women's Health Initiative Observational Study that began in 1993. The data included women ages 50 to 79 who were divided into two groups; those who had a family history of later-onset breast cancer (after age 45) and those who did not. The amount of risk reduced by adhering to the three health behaviors was the same for women with and without a family history.
"Given the strong awareness of breast cancer and distress about inheritable risk", Gramling said, "it is essential that scientists understand the actions women can take to reduce their risk".
###
Notes to Editors
1. Family history of later-onset breast cancer, breast healthy behavior and invasive breast cancer among postmenopausal women: a cohort study
Robert Gramling, Timothy L Lash, Kenneth J Rothman, Howard J Cabral, Rebecca Silliman, Mary Roberts, Marcia L Stefanick, Rosanne Harrigan, Monica L Bertoia and Charles B Eaton
Breast Cancer Research 2010, 12:R82 doi:10.1186/bcr2727
Article available at journal website: http://breast-cancer-research.com/content/12/5/R82
Please name the journal in any story you write. If you are writing for the web, please link to the article. All articles are available free of charge, according to BioMed Central's open access policy.
2. The WHI program is supported by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
3. Breast Cancer Research is an international, peer-reviewed online journal, publishing original research, reviews, commentaries and reports. Research articles of exceptional interest are published in all areas of biology and medicine relevant to breast cancer, including normal mammary gland biology, with special emphasis on the genetic, biochemical, and cellular basis of breast cancer.
4. BioMed Central (http://www.biomedcentral.com/) is an STM (Science, Technology and Medicine) publisher which has pioneered the open access publishing model. All peer-reviewed research articles published by BioMed Central are made immediately and freely accessible online, and are licensed to allow redistribution and reuse. BioMed Central is part of Springer Science+Business Media, a leading global publisher in the STM sector.
END
COLUMBUS, Ohio -- A giant star in a faraway galaxy recently ended its life with a dust-shrouded whimper instead of the more typical bang.
Ohio State University researchers suspect that this odd event -- the first one of its kind ever viewed by astronomers – was more common early in the universe.
It also hints at what we would see if the brightest star system in our galaxy became a supernova.
In a paper published online in the Astrophysical Journal, Christopher Kochanek, a professor of astronomy at Ohio State, and his colleagues describe how the supernova appeared ...
Direct-to-consumer personal genetic profiling services that claim to predict people's health risks by analysing their DNA are often inconclusive and companies that sell them should provide better information about the evidence on which the results are based, says the UK Nuffield Council on Bioethics, in a new report on the ethics of so-called personalised healthcare services.
The report says that claims that these services are leading to a new era of 'personalised healthcare' are overstated and should be treated with caution. The Council recommends that regulators of ...
COLUMBUS, Ohio – Researchers looking at corals in the western tropical Pacific Ocean have found records linking a profound shift in the depth of the division between warm surface water and colder, deeper water traceable to recent global warming.
The finding is the first real evidence supporting what climate modelers have been predicting as the effects of global climate change on the subsurface ocean circulation.
The report by researchers from Ohio State University and the University of Toronto was published in the latest online edition of the journal Geophysical Research ...
Goods trains move at night because during daytime the Swiss rail system is used to full capacity by passenger traffic. Unfortunately, it is goods trains which make the most noise – and they operate at exactly the time when most people want to sleep. If the policy of shifting goods transport from the roads to the rail network is to succeed, then goods trains must be made significantly quieter.
The Swiss Federal Office for the Environment (FOEN) therefore tasked a team of scientists, headed by Kurt Eggenschwiler of Empa's Acoustics and Noise Control Laboratory, with the ...
Researchers used Einstein's famous E=mc2 equation and the Large Hadron Collider to recreate a miniature version of the event at the origins of our Universe, and the first findings from their work were published in the journal Physical Review Letters. Dr. Andreas Warburton of McGill's Department of Physics made leading contributions to the analysis of data from the experiment, known as "ATLAS," meaning the findings have a special significance for Canadian science.
Warburton and 3171 colleagues from around the world are using the data collected from the recreation in an ...
Changes in the human population, including aging and urbanization, could significantly affect global emissions of carbon dioxide over the next 40 years, according to research results published this week.
The research, results of which appear in a paper in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), was conducted by scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) and the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
It was funded by the National ...
MANHATTAN, KAN. -- A Kansas State University professor's research and the upcoming Ecological Genomics Symposium continue to make the university a leader in the emerging field of ecological genomics.
Ecological genomics is an integrated field that focuses on how organisms, ecosystems and communities respond to environmental change. It uses genomic technologies, such as gene sequencing and expression analysis, on a wider scale to ask and research ecological questions, said Michael Herman, associate professor of biology.
"We're working hard to advance this field," Herman ...
All-Terrain Vehicles (ATVs) are associated with a significant and increasing number of hospitalizations for children in the U.S., according to a new report by the Center for Injury Research and Policy at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Over a nine- year period (1997-2006) hospitalizations for ATV injuries increased 150 percent among youth younger than 18 years, with important demographic variations. Rates increased the most dramatically in the South and Midwest, and among teens ages 15 to 17. While males between 15 to 17 have the highest rate of ATV ...
MINNEAPOLIS/ST.PAUL (Oct. 12, 2010) – Children's health insurance coverage still varies significantly at both the state and national levels, according to researchers at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health (SPH). In particular, researchers found gaps in coverage that vary across states by age, race/ethnicity and income.
Even states with relatively low rates of uninsured children have gaps in coverage for some groups of children, according to researchers. Conversely, some states demonstrating high rates of uninsurance have relatively low gaps or disparity ...
COLUMBIA, Mo. – A University of Missouri researcher believes his latest work moves scientists closer to a cure for cystic fibrosis, one of the world's most common fatal genetic diseases.
The Journal of Biological Chemistry has published findings by Tzyh-Chang Hwang, a professor in the School of Medicine's Department of Medical Pharmacology and Physiology and the Dalton Cardiovascular Research Center. The publication has been recognized as the "paper of the week" for the journal, meaning Hwang's work is considered to be in the top 1 percent of papers reviewed annually ...
