Pregnant women who have morning sickness have lower risk of breast cancer /Long hours 'can hasten an early menopause'

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Pregnant women who have morning sickness have lower risk of breast cancer

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/health/womenfamily.html?in_article_id=464098 & in_page_id=1799Last updated at 11:03am on 25th June 2007 Breast cancer risk lowered in those who suffer from morning sickness

 

 

Pregnant women who suffer from morning sickness can be consoled with the knowledge they have a lowered risk of breast cancer, new research has shown.

A study of 3,000 women found nausea during pregnancy was associated with a 30 per cent reduced chance of developing the disease in later life. Scientists think the explanation may be changing hormone levels that affect breast tissue as well as trigger feelings of sickness. One hormone made in the placenta has been shown in laboratory tests to be potentially protective against cancer. Human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) affects foetal development, and is routinely measured for pregnancy tests. Home testing kits show if higher than normal levels of hCG are present in the urine. US researchers at the University of Buffalo, New York State, compared information on pregnancy-related conditions from 1,001 women with breast cancer and 1,917 disease-free women. They were looking for any links between breast cancer risk and complications such as pregnancy-induced high blood pressure, pre-eclampsia, gestational diabetes, high weight gain and nausea and vomiting. Women experiencing sickness during pregnancy had a 30 per cent lower risk of developing breast cancer than mothers-to-be who sailed through nine nausea-free months. The association strengthened as symptoms of nausea and vomiting became more severe, or persisted longer into pregnancy. Study leader David Jaworowicz Jr, a Buffalo doctoral candidate, presented the findings last week at the annual meeting of the Society for Epidemiologic Research in Boston, Massachusetts. He said: "Although the exact mechanism responsible for causing nausea and vomiting during pregnancy has yet to be pinpointed, it likely is a result of changing levels of ovarian and placental hormone production, which may include higher circulating levels of a hormone called human chorionic gonadotropin. "In-vitro studies have shown that this hormone possesses several activities that have potential protective effects against cancer cells." The study found no association between other pregnancy-related conditions and breast cancer risk. Scientists used data from a large-scale investigation called the Western New York Exposure and Breast Cancer Study, which recruited women aged 35 to 79 from two New York counties. Although most pregnancy conditions were not statistically linked with breast cancer, Mr Jaworowicz stressed the findings were preliminary and based on a relatively crude assessment. Future analyses would look at the women's experiences in finer detail. A modest trend towards an increased cancer risk was seen in pre-menopausal women who gained more than 40lbs during pregnancy, compared with those who put on less than 23lbs. However, this association was not statistically significant. "Pregnancy is a time of drastic physiological changes, including rapid development and alterations in the breast tissue," said Mr Jaworowicz. "The rapidly changing anatomy of the breast makes it more susceptible to errors in DNA replication and/or repair, which may translate into breast cancer. "Associated with these changes are the fluctuating hormonal profiles that must be kept in a delicate balance. If the correct ratios and relative amounts between these hormones are not maintained within a normal range, certain pregnancy-related outcomes may emerge, such as high blood pressure, glucose intolerance and gestational diabetes, eclamptic conditions with seizures and/or toxaemia, or extremely severe nausea. "These pregnancy-related factors may serve as indicators of underlying biological conditions that may influence a woman's lifetime risk for breast cancer."

 

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Long hours 'can hasten an early menopause'

By FIONA MACRAE and BOB OSMAN - More by this author » Last updated at 11:25am on 25th June 2007

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Women who regularly work more than 48 hours a week tend to go through the menopause earlier than those with shorter hours

Working long hours in a stressful job can hasten the onset of the menopause by at least a year, doctors have warned.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=464127 & in_page_id=1770

 

 

Women who regularly work more than 48 hours a week tend to go through the menopause earlier than those who put in shorter hours, research shows.

High levels of stress in the workplace can also lead to periods stopping earlier than would normally be expected.

However, being highly educated or having a repetitive job lengthened the child-bearing years.

It is thought that hormonal changes brought on by the strain of putting in long hours or holding down a stressful job affect a woman's reproductive health.

The warning, from French doctors, comes just weeks after other research found that working long hours in pregnancy can greatly increase the risk of miscarriage.

The study of more than 7,000 expectant nurses found that those who worked more than 40 hours a week were 50 per cent more likely to miscarry.

The findings come as more and more British women delay motherhood, with almost half of the 720,000 births each year being to women aged 30-plus.

The research on the menopause, carried out at Versailles University, looked at the health and lifestyle of more than 1,500 women in their 50s.

It found that those who worked at least 48 hours a week were more likely than those doing shorter hours to go through the menopause before the average age of 52.

For those with stressful jobs - in which they felt constant pressure to rush, do several things at once and were frequently interrupted when carrying out tasks - menopause tended to hit at 51.

In women who were suffering from depression, the effects of long working days were even greater.

They were twice as likely to go through the menopause before they reached 52.

Smoking was also found to have a big effect, with those who smoked more than ten cigarettes a day going through the menopause at the age of 50, the American Journal of Epidemiology reported.

It is thought that long hours and stress affect levels of hormones key to a woman's reproductive cycle, while smoking causes the eggs to deteriorate more quickly than normal.

Genetics also play a large role in the timing of the menopause, with many women experiencing it at a similar age to their mother and sisters.

Although the average age in the UK for the menopause - defined as the time when periods have stopped for 12 months - is 52, 1 per cent of British women go through it before they reach 40.