Breast Cancer Incidence Higher With Urban Lifestyle
Living in the city can increase your risk of developing breast cancer. YIKES! I’m so glad I live in the freakin’ suburbs! Now’s the time to buy a house in the country!
Seriously folks … researchers in the UK have discovered that women living (and working) in urban areas are significantly more susceptible to the disease than those living in countryside. The study shows that urban women have denser breasts (and previous research suggested women with denser breasts were four times more likely to develop cancer).
Here’s the BBC/News story, but if you don’t want to go to that page and you’re wondering what can you do with this information then here’s this:
The jury is still out on why the denser breasts on urbanites correlates to breast cancer incidence but they are considering a link between breast cancer incidence and:
- the stressful lives urbanites live
- the level of air pollution in urban environments, and/or
- the body size/weight of city women (city women are thinner, but perhaps too thin; breast density is inversely related to weight).
Like I said, from what I can tell, the jury is still out.
But Dr. Nicholas Perry at the London Breast Institute, lead researcher on the study, had this to say: “Women who live in urban areas are known to have lower attendance for breast-screening programs than women in outlying areas.” If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a million times — mammography can save your life!
So if you live in the city, do you really need to search the listings for a suburban home? Not necessarily. (Although I do believe the suburban life of a soccer mom is highly underrated.) But you do need to be more diligent about your BSE and mammography screenings.
cancer, breast cancer, mammography, London, breast density
November 27th, 2007 at 4:19 pm
Interesting findings. But, I guess we could say a lot of people might have higher health risk factors by living in an urban area. From pollution to driving in heavy traffic to gang violence. More people equals more risks. But then again, you can live in the country side and get pretty hurt by some farm equipment or something like that too.
I guess the point should be that we all need to take better care of ourselves and get checked for things more often. And those of us who are in a position to help those less fortunate should really try to do so whenever possible!