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| Skirt size linked to cancer risk |
IF a 25-year-old women goes up a size - for instance from a size 12 to a 14 - every 10 years until after they go through the menopause they could be increasing their chances of getting the disease, the study found.
The authors said that overall weight gain has been linked to breast cancer but a thicker waist appears to be particularly harmful. Their study, published in the journal BMJ Open, examined the self-reported "central obesity" of more than 90,000 women across England aged 50 and over who had no known history of breast cancer.
They were asked about their skirt size when they were aged 25, their current size and a number of other health questions. During the three-year follow-up period 1090 women developed the disease. The researchers found that a unit increase in UK skirt size every 10 years between 25 and postmenopausal age was linked to a 33 per cent increased risk of breast cancer.
Going up two skirt sizes in the same period was associated with a 77 per cent greater risk, they added. They also found that a reduction in skirt size decreased the risk of breast cancer but cautioned that three quarters of the women surveyed increased their skirt size during their adult lives.
"These findings may provide women with a simple and easy to understand message given that skirt size has been found to be a reliable measure for changes in waist circumference and one that women may relate and understand better in comparison to other measures such as BMI (body mass index)," said the researchers from London and Manchester.
