Bigger and taller baby girls vulnerable to breast cancer later

London, September 29: A female infant’s birth size may predict their risk of developing breast cancerdefine later in life, a new study suggests. Bigger birth size, especially length, boosts the risk of breast cancer, the leading cause of cancer deaths among women worldwide, the study warns.

Isabel dos Santos Silva, MD, PhD, professor of epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, the study's lead author said that baby girls who are of larger than average length and weight at birth are more likely to develop breast cancerdefine when they grow up.

Isabel and colleagues, who reported their findings in the Public Library of Science Medicine journal, reached their conclusion after an analysis of 32 studies involving more than 600,000 women across the world. The researchers found that every extra pound at birth increased baby’s risk of developing breast cancer by six per cent. They also noticed that for every inch’s increase in length at birth the risk augmented by six per cent.

"Women who weighed 8.8 pounds or more at birth have a 12% increase in breast cancer risk compared to women who weighed 6.6 to 7.69 pounds," Isabel explained adding that women who were 20 inches in length at birth were 17% more at risk than the women who were 19.29 inches.

The researchers also found that babies with head circumferences of 13.7 inches or more were 11% more likely to have breast cancer than those whose head circumference was 12.9 inches.

"These findings provide strong evidence that birth size -- in particular birth length -- is a marker of a woman's breast cancer risk in adulthood, although the mechanisms underlying this association are unclear," Isabel said.

She said their research doesn’t trigger any new clinical advice for women who were bigger babies. "This is a modest association," she said. "At the moment, we don't know what it means."

Isabel said as very few evidences are available that link pre-natal environment to breast cancer risk in later life, more research is needed to determine the association between the two.

Although, the reason behind the results remains a mystery to scientists, they still believe their findings can help doctors predict who is at a higher risk of breast cancer.

About Breast Cancer
Breast cancer is the most common tumor in women. It can affect anyone irrespective of age, race or lifestyle. It is the second leading cause of cancer death in women, first being the lung cancer.

Breast cancer affects women of all ages equally although the risk increases with aging. It is mainly caused either through genetic inheritance or by the mutations in breast cancer genesdefine, BRCA-1 and BRCA-2.

Heart disease is dangerous mostly after the age of 65 but breast cancer can affect a woman at an age as early as 20. Thus, women need to be vigilant all their lives in order to prevent it from getting lethal.

According to the American Cancer Society, more than 180,000 women are diagnosed with breast cancer in the United States every year and almost 41,000 die because of it.