Word: breasted
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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According to Dr. Walter Willett at the Harvard School of Public Health, overall calories may play a larger role than fat: Americans may simply be eating too well. Willett points out that breast-cancer rates tend to be highest in prosperous countries where people are well nourished. In such lands of plenty, girls begin to menstruate at an earlier age, women tend to have their children later in life and menopause also comes later. Late menopause (after 50), delayed childbearing (after 30) and early onset of menstruation (before 12) are all acknowledged "risk factors" for breast cancer. For older women...
...studies that seem to refute it, including a survey by Willett of 90,000 nurses from 34 to 59. Though the diets ranged from 32% fat content to about 44% (the U.S. average is 42%), the Harvard researcher could find no correlation between fat intake and the incidence of breast tumors. One problem with Willett's study: many researchers believe that dietary fat must be more radically reduced, to about 20% of total calories, to affect the occurrence of breast cancer...
...does figure in the development of breast cancer, just what role does it play? No one in the research community believes that too many thick shakes and fries can in themselves cause normal, well-behaved cells to mutate into unruly malignant ones. In fact, no one has the faintest notion what causes the initial genetic changes to occur. "In lung cancer we have a reasonable idea that the major cause is cigarette smoking," says Dr. Philip Leder, chairman of Harvard's department of genetics. "In skin cancer we understand that the major cause is ultraviolet light, which is absorbed...
Doctors have long been convinced that some people are genetically predisposed to develop breast cancer. A woman whose mother or sister had the disease before menopause has five to six times the usual risk of developing it. If either one had the disease in both breasts, then the woman's risk is five to 10 times the norm...
Though scientists do not know how breast cancer begins, they do have some ideas about how it progresses. The female hormone estrogen, which is produced in the ovaries and causes a young girl's breasts to develop, also plays an unmistakable role in promoting the growth of tumor cells. Why do childlessness, late menopause, early onset of menstruation and delayed childbearing all increase the risk of breast cancer? One likely explanation is that all involve a prolonged, uninterrupted presence of high levels of estrogen in the bloodstream. Doctors have also noticed that women whose ovaries were removed before...