Breast cancer linked to girls’ height, weight

A study of more than 117,000 Danish women provides the most convincing evidence yet of a link between a girl’s growth rate and her risk of developing breast cancer later in life.

The report, published in Thursday’s edition of The New England Journal of Medicine, found that women who were tall and thin by the age of 14 and those who weighed a lot at birth were more likely to develop breast cancer.

Researchers in Copenhagen looked at height and weight measurements taken from 117,415 girls born between 1930 and 1975, which they obtained from school health records.

The team found that high birth weight, rapid growth near the time of mammary gland development, being tall and having low body-mass-index during adolescence were independent risk factors for breast cancer.

Specifically, they determined that girls who were about 5-feet, 6-inches tall by age 14 were 50% more likely to develop breast cancer later in life than girls who were just under 5 feet at the same age.

The team also found that newborn girls who weighed more than 8 3/4 pounds were on average 17% more likely to develop the disease later in life than those who weighed about 5 1/2 pounds.

In an editorial in the Journal, Karin Michels and Walter Willett of Harvard University said the study reinforced growing evidence that breast cancer may have its origins early in life.