Research
Hormonal
Postmenopausal weight gain of 10 kg or more increases the risk of invasive breast cancer, with a relative risk of 1.18 compared to weight maintenance.
If you are postmenopausal, avoiding significant weight gain (10 kg or more) can help lower your risk of breast cancer. This is likely due to the hormonal effects of increased body fat. Maintaining a stable weight is a key strategy for risk reduction.
StrongSupportsHIGH confidence
Compared with weight maintenance, women who gained 10.0 kg or more since menopause were at an increased risk of breast cancer (RR, 1.18; 95% CI, 1.03-1.35; P = .002 for trend).
Why this rating
Large prospective cohort study (Nurses' Health Study) with long follow-up (up to 26 years) and rigorous adjustment for confounders.
Source
Adult Weight Change and Risk of Postmenopausal Breast Cancer
A. Heather Eliassen et al. · JAMA · 2006
DOI 10.1001/jama.296.2.193
cohort · n=87143Cited 650×
Read the paper DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10
More from this paper
- Postmenopausal weight loss of 10 kg or more, particularly when maintained, significantly decreases the risk of breast cancer in women who have never used postmenopausal hormones.Strong
- The association between weight gain and breast cancer risk is stronger in women who have never used postmenopausal hormones (PMH) compared to those who have ever used PMH.Strong
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