Re: left handed twist on breast cancer

In message <1136229056.175520.89530@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, a.c. <aquachimp@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes 
I'm not sure if this news item has yet featured within the uk, even
though I heard mention of the British Medical Journal, (on Belgium news
programme) but apparantly left handed women are 40% more likely to get
breast cancer. How odd!


Here's the lead-in to the article from the BMJ site

BMJ 2005;331 (15 October), doi:10.1136/bmj.331.7521.0-d
"Left handed women have more than twice the risk of developing breast cancer before reaching the menopause than right handed women. In a population based prospective case-cohort study of more than 12 000 women who were followed up for 16 years, Ramadhani and colleagues (p 882) also found that the risk of postmenopausal breast cancer was similar for left handed and non-left handed women. A plausible pathophysiological explanation is the existence of common intrauterine hormonal influences that determine both cerebral lateralisation and risk of breast cancer."

and here's the Comment from the article:

"We found that left handed women are more than twice as likely to develop premenopausal breast cancer as non-left handed women. This risk is compatible with left handedness being a marker of constitutional risk rather than of environmental risk as with postmenopausal breast cancer.

Our findings among premenopausal women may be compatible with a stronger association in women with a normal body mass index, as high body mass index is a particular risk factor for postmenopausal breast cancer. However, our data did not allow for a robust analysis of this issue.

The origin of the association may lie in intrauterine exposure to steroid hormones, as supported by data showing a higher prevalence of left handedness in women with intrauterine exposure to diethylstilbestrol.4 Although the underlying mechanisms remain elusive, our results support the hypothesis that left handedness is related to increased risk of breast cancer."

I don't think I'm allowed to, and since this is off-topic nor should I quote any more than that here but if individuals want I guess I could email a pdf of the article to them, (but only up until 6pm tomorrow - after that I'll be away for a few days).

--
dave @ stejonda
.

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