LEFT-HANDED women are more than twice as likely as right-handers to suffer from breast cancer before reaching menopause, Dutch scientists said today.
More than a million women are diagnosed with breast cancer worldwide each year. Three-quarters of cases occur after menopause, which usually begins around the age of 50. Researchers at the University Medical Centre in Utrecht in the Netherlands speculate that there is a shared origin early in life for both left-handedness and developing breast cancer, possibly exposure to hormones in the womb. "Left handedness is associated with breast cancer, most specifically pre-menopausal breast cancer," said Cuno Uiterwaal, an assistant professor of clinical epidemiology at the university.
He and his colleagues studied 12,000 healthy, middle-aged women born between 1932 and 1941 who were part of a breast screening program. The scientists determined their hand preference and followed up their medical history to see which women developed breast cancer.
"If we take pre-menopausal and post-menopausal breast cancer then there was a 40 per cent increased risk," Professor Uiterwaal said of left-handed women.
But when they spilt it further the scientists found most of the excess risk was in breast cancer before the menopause.
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More than a million women are diagnosed with breast cancer worldwide each year. Three-quarters of cases occur after menopause, which usually begins around the age of 50. Researchers at the University Medical Centre in Utrecht in the Netherlands speculate that there is a shared origin early in life for both left-handedness and developing breast cancer, possibly exposure to hormones in the womb. "Left handedness is associated with breast cancer, most specifically pre-menopausal breast cancer," said Cuno Uiterwaal, an assistant professor of clinical epidemiology at the university.
He and his colleagues studied 12,000 healthy, middle-aged women born between 1932 and 1941 who were part of a breast screening program. The scientists determined their hand preference and followed up their medical history to see which women developed breast cancer.
"If we take pre-menopausal and post-menopausal breast cancer then there was a 40 per cent increased risk," Professor Uiterwaal said of left-handed women.
But when they spilt it further the scientists found most of the excess risk was in breast cancer before the menopause.
Full Article