Smoking and Beast Cancer

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Written by Allen Lawrence, M.D.

Thursday, 27 January 2011 05:17

Heavy Smoking May Raise Breast Cancer Risk For Younger Women

We all know that smoking is not good for us. We also know that it can cause cancer, but probably you thought that everyone was talking about lung cancer. While this is true , what you did not know was that smoking could also increase your risk of breast cancer.

A recent study performed at Brigham and Woman's Hospital and Harvard Medical School and published in the Archives of Internal Medicine Women suggests that women who smoke regularly before their menopause, have a higher risk of not only developing lung cancer but also breast cancer. They also found that risk of both are even higher if the woman starts smoking before she get pregnant. Interesting however, was that there was no link found among light smokers.

Breast cancer is the most common cancer women will experience during their lifetime. A number of potential carcinogens found in tobacco smoke, N-nitrosamines, aromatic amines, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons appear to be responsible for the raise in woman's risk for developing breast cancer.

This information comes from the Nurses' Health Study which followed some 111,140 women who actively smoked from 1976 through 2006. The study also followed some 36,000 women who inhaled secondhand smoke (passive smoke exposure) from 1982-2006.

The study identified 8,772 cases of breast cancer. The study found that there was a clear link between current and past smoking and the women’s risk for developing breast cancer. The demonstrated that the risk for these women was greater if the woman had smoked for a longer period of time, she started at an earlier age, or she consumed many cigarettes each day.

According to the authors of the study, smoking before menopause was positively associated with an increased risk of developing breast cancer. The authors also commented that there also maybe evidence demonstrating that smoking after menopause might actually be associated with a slightly decreased risk for breast cancer. The difference, they suggested may be due to “an antiestrogenic effect of smoking among postmenopausal women” and smoking may actually “reduce their already low endogenous estrogen levels.”

Interestingly however, there appeared to be no association between passive exposure to cigarette smoke during adulthood or childhood, resulting in a higher risk for breast cancer. The researchers looked into all cases where women had been subjected to passive smoking as a child at home, and as an adult at home or at work. Even when exposure went on for a very long time, there was no link found between passive smoking and any increased risk of breast cancer.

They concluded, "In the present study, we created an index of active smoking that integrates quantity, age at which one started smoking and duration of smoking. The results suggested that, although an elevated risk for light smokers and moderate smokers was not apparent, heavy smokers who started smoking early in life, smoked for a long duration and smoked a high quantity were at the highest risk of breast cancer, supporting an independent and additive effect from various smoking measures on breast carcinogenesis."

For more information about Breast Cancer, click here.