Being overweight is usually associated with a higher risk of developing cancer. But now a Swedish study says that a woman who was thin at age seven is more likely to develop breast cancer after menopause.
According to Jingmei Li from the Karolinska Institute in Sweden and her team, being fat at the age of seven provides protection against cancer, especially against the most dangerous tumours.
Researchers looked at 2,818 Swedish women with breast cancer and 3,111 women in gold health.
Jingmei Li says, "Our main finding was that a large body type at age seven years was associated with a decreased risk of postmenopausal breast cancer. Although strongly associated with other known risk factors such as age of menarche, adult BMI and breast density, size at age seven years remained a significant protective factor after adjustment for these other issues."
The journal Breast Cancer Research adds that the mechanism that causes this phenomenon is unknown.
In other news, a team of researchers at the University of Washington managed to decode the genome of a breast tumour and its metastases in an African-American who died from cancer. The team found 20 genetic changes in the tumour cells.
This will allow scientists to better understand how the disease spreads and thus create more effective treatments in the future.