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NewsThe Cochrane Library
Open Access

Weight Loss Linked to Lower Breast Cancer Risk for Postmenopausal Women

Saudi Medical Journal November 2018, 39 (11) 1167;
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October 8, 2018 - In a study of postmenopausal women, participants who lost weight had a lower risk of developing invasive breast cancer than those who maintained or gained weight. Published early online in CANCER, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society, the findings suggest that weight loss may help lower postmenopausal women’s breast cancer risk.

Although obesity has been strongly related to breast cancer risk, studies examining whether weight loss might reduce postmenopausal women’s risk have provided mixed results. To examine the issue, Rowan Chlebowski, MD, PhD, of the City of Hope National Medical Center in Duarte, California, and his colleagues analyzed information on 61,335 women participating in the World Health Initiative Observational Study who had no prior breast cancer and had normal mammogram results. The women’s body weight, height, and body mass index were assessed at the start of the study and again 3 years later.

During an average follow-up of 11.4 years, there were 3,061 new cases of invasive breast cancer diagnosed. Women with weight loss ≥5 percent had a 12 percent lower breast cancer risk compared with stable weight women, with no interaction by body mass index. Weight gain of ≥5 percent was not associated with risk of breast cancer overall but was associated with a 54 percent higher incidence of triple negative breast cancer.

“Our study indicates that moderate, relatively short-term weight reduction was associated with a statistically significant reduction in breast cancer risk for postmenopausal women,” said Dr. Chlebowski. “These are observational results, but they are also supported by randomized clinical trial evidence from the Women’s Health Initiative Dietary Modification trial where, in a randomized clinical trial setting, adopting a low-fat dietary pattern that was associated with a similar magnitude of weight loss resulted in a significant improvement in breast cancer overall survival. These findings, taken together, provide strong correlative evidence that a modest weight loss program can impact breast cancer.”

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. A visual abstract is available to use in your coverage of this study.

Full citation: Weight Loss and Breast Cancer Incidence in Postmenopausal Women. Rowan T. Chlebowski, Juhua Luo, Garnet L. Anderson, Wendy Barrington, Kerryn Reding, Michael S. Simon, JoAnn E. Manson, Thomas E. Rohan, Jean Wactawski-Wende, Dorothy Lane, Howard Strickler, Yasmin Mosaver-Rahmani, Jo L. Freudenheim, Nazmus Saquib, and Marcia L. Stefanick. CANCER; Published Online: October 8, 2018 (DOI: 10.1002/cncr.31687).

Copyright © 2018 The Cochrane Collaboration. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., reproduced with permission.

  • Copyright: © Saudi Medical Journal

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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Saudi Medical Journal: 39 (11)
Saudi Medical Journal
Vol. 39, Issue 11
1 Nov 2018
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© 2025 Saudi Medical Journal Saudi Medical Journal is copyright under the Berne Convention and the International Copyright Convention.  Saudi Medical Journal is an Open Access journal and articles published are distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License (CC BY-NC). Readers may copy, distribute, and display the work for non-commercial purposes with the proper citation of the original work. Electronic ISSN 1658-3175. Print ISSN 0379-5284.

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