I seem to be on a breast theme here, but…

Source: BBC Health, Radiological Society of North America

In what might simply represent serendipitous reporting, a study of approximately 1000 women at a private London Hospital has found that women living in the city had denser breast tissue.

The significance of this is that recent research (see previous post) suggests that women with denser breast tissue are at greater risk for recurrence of cancer.

So what’s the correlation with the city? Hard to say. Fortunately, fairly easy to post.  Women in the study who lived in the city tended to be thinner than those in the country and breast density tends to be inversely proportional (meaning the opposite of what you’d think) in relation to body weight.  In other words, thin = denser breasts.  But given that the researchers only found 25% more dense breast tissue in city women, that’s not the whole picture.

So what is it? Air pollution (don’t laugh, it’s been suggested)? Higher protein diets?

Apparently researchers are dealing with an urban population, many of which are under 50 and living in central London, who do not take part in screening for breast cancer (ie. annual mammograms).  So perhaps the difference is really one in reporting?  In any event it does present another opportunity to discuss breasts and to remind women 40 and over to have annual mammograms.

~Posted by David Marc Schwadron, Esquire