Watch Out! Bulging Waist Increases Risk of Breast Cancer: Study

Women with bulging waists are likely to develop breast cancer, warns a study.

A huge waistline and flabby body are indicators of poor health and up the risk of multiple diseases including diabetes, heart problems, cancer and even death. British researchers from the University College London advise women between 20 and 60 to keep a strict watch on their waist size as any drastic increase is associated with development of breast cancer in later years.

 Their study involved 92,000 postmenopausal participants aged above 50 and experts recorded their overall increase in skirt size after 25. The survey also recorded other variables like BMI levels, family history of breast cancer and use of hormone replacement therapy, reports the Time.      

It was observed that increase in skirt size of the subjects was an accurate method of measuring breast cancer risk as accumulation of fat around the abdomen is more harmful than flab in other parts of the body. Increasing fat levels alter the production of estrogen in the body, which in turn triggers growth of tumors. Women whose waist size increases every 10 years have 33 percent increased chances of getting the disease after reaching menopausal age.

In addition, the findings also revealed that waist size that increases by two sizes every decade hikes up the risk rate to 77 percent. But, the results did not help determine a cause and effect relation between waist size and breast cancer.

"Although the exact mechanism of these relationships needs to be better understood, there is a suggestion that body fat around the waist is more metabolically active than adipose tissue elsewhere," the experts write in the study, reports the Fox News.

More information is available online in the BMJ Open.