The first-of-its-kind study by Fred Hutchinson researchers suggests that women who suffer from migraine headaches have a lower risk of getting breast cancerdefine compared with women who do not have a history of migraines.
Findings of the new study, carried out by a research team at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center (FHCRC) in Seattle, Washington, suggest that women who have a history of migraines are 30 percent less likely to develop breast cancer, the most common tumor in women.
"Many of the triggers of migraine in women are known to be hormonally related, and also are important in the development of breast cancer," said Christopher Li, MD, of FHCRC and the lead author of the study. "We now see a plausible relationship between hormones
define and migraines and breast cancer."
Li, who reported his findings in the November issue of Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, says that though the biological mechanism behind the association is not fully known, it is likely the same hormones that contribute to breast cancer playing a role in preventing migraines.
To reach their findings, Li and colleagues examined data from 3,412 postmenopausal women, more than half of whom had been diagnosed with invasive breast cancer.
The researchers found that migraine history appeared to curb the risk of the most common subtypes of breast cancer: estrogen-receptor and progesterone-receptor positive.
"We found that, overall, women who had a history of migraines had a 30 percent lower risk of breast cancer compared to women who did not have a history of such headaches," said the authors.
Li hopes the findings could help health experts find new ways of reducing a woman's risk for breast cancer. "This gives us a new avenue to explore the biology behind risk reduction. Hopefully this could help stimulate other ideas and extend what we know about the biology of breast cancer," he said.
Breast cancer affects women of all ages equally although the risk increases with aging. It is the second leading cause of cancer deaths in women, first being the lung cancer. 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.
Migraine is an intense, often debilitating type of headache. It affect as many as 24 million people in the United States, and is responsible for billions of dollars in lost work, poor job performance, and direct medical costs.
This severe recurring headache, usually affecting only one side of the head, is characterized by sharp pain and often accompanied by nausea, vomiting, and visual disturbances.
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