Breast Cancer Causes And Health Effects

Obesity

Breast cancer in some individuals may be the result of obesity. Any individual who has a body mass index of greater than twenty-five is considered to be either overweight or obese. Individuals who are obese have a greater number of fat cells in their body, which produce a hormone called estrogen. More fat cells in the body mean there is also an increased amount of estrogen in the body. Estrogen has the ability to cause hormone-receptor-positive breast cancers to initiate, develop, and expand. The association between the development of breast cancer and extra fat is complex and can be influenced by other factors such as the location of such extra fat cells.

Excess fat tissue around an individual's belly can increase their risk of breast cancer more than having the extra fat tissue concentrated in their hips or thighs. For women who are post-menopause, an increase of five units in body mass index is associated with a twelve percent increase in breast cancer risk. In addition, post-menopausal individuals who have a body mass index that is considered obese have up to a forty percent increase in the risk of developing breast cancer.

Oral Contraceptives

The development of certain types of hormone-receptive-positive breast cancers can be caused by an individual's use of oral contraceptives. Oral contraceptives are medications containing hormones that are taken to prevent pregnancy. Birth control pills accomplish this by stopping the regular ovulation cycle and inhibiting the ability of sperm to pass through a woman's cervix. Oral contraceptives that are a combination of estrogen and progesterone are more likely to cause breast cancer than other types of birth control pills.

In addition, increased risk of breast cancer is also associated with the use of a triphasic type of birth control pill that changes hormone doses three times during the individual's monthly cycle. Estrogen and progesterone are known to stimulate the initiation, development, and expansion of certain types of breast cancer. Because oral contraceptives contain synthetic forms of such hormones, they make a woman taking them more likely to develop these kinds of hormone-receptive-positive breast cancers.