The hidden link: How obesity increases breast cancer risk in women

The occurrence of breast cancer has greatly included itself as a major public health issue in the country and the incidents are increasing in the present years.

1. Changing lifestyle patterns
Major life style changes have occurred in the last few decades in urban India which has led to this breast cancer. Several lifestyle-related factors are linked to an increased risk of breast cancer:

Sedentary lifestyles : Poor physical activity level especially in the urban areas is one of the leading causes. Physical inactivity has also been linked to development of cancer including breast cancer.

Obesity : Obesity, particularly, postmenopausal obesity has been shown to have potential breast cancer promoting effects. Overweight is rising in India due to the adoption of high-energy dense diets, reduced physical activity, and changes in dietetic patterns toward the geographical zones.

Delayed childbearing: Education and employment now start taking priority among Indian women and most of them delay their marriage and child bearing age. Some of the recognised risk factors include; delay childbearing or having few children in the family are risk factors for developing the disease. However, other factors include failure to breast feed or taking a short time to breast feed since it has been realized that breast feeding has a protective effect on breast cancer.

Alcohol consumption: Alcohol drinkers among the illiterate women are still lower than the women in the western countries, but the percentage among the Indian women has been increasing, especially among the women in the urban area. One or the recognized precursors to breast cancer is alcohol use.

2. Enhanced client populace and subsidence
However, it was observed that even as the disease is becoming more frequent, that which is perceived is partly because of better examination procedures. Efforts made on awareness programs for early detection of breast cancer have resulted to early reporting and diagnosis hence increasing its figures. Nonetheless, the screening programs are a rarity for many women they reside in rural areas or economically deprived areas there by experiencing a delay in diagnoses.

3. Genetic and hormonal factors
It is also established that a proportion of the breast cancer incidence in India is hereditary. Thus, different mutations may predetermine a woman, for instance, to develop breast cancer more often than other women. Genetic mutations, however, are more prevalent in the Western populations, yet, cases related to testing for genetic susceptibility in India are on the rise.

It is also associated with hormonal factors. Those women who underwent long-term hormonal treatments like HRT, or had long-term estrogen exposure because of early onset of menstruation or late menopause are at a higher risk of developing breast cancer.

4. External factors have it; social and economic factors
Over the past three decades, social changes related with urbanization and industrialization have led to change in environmental factors that could be a cause of breast cancer. Contact also with chemical substances, radiation and other pollutants has been shown to cause cancers of various types such as the breast cancer.

In addition to that, various socio-economic factors play important roles in breast cancer eventualities in the country. Female from the poor background usually have no access to quality health care most of them are diagnosed at late stage when treatment is not effective. Indeed, the current mobile mammography program has fewer accesses from women with a higher income and those who are employed while women from the lower income areas were more illiterate and unemployed.

Exploding incidence of breast cancer in Indian women is due to several endogenous and exogenous factors that are both genetic and lifestyle related and socio-economic. Even if there are signs of increase in awareness of the disease as well as the early detection, there is still much that can be done so as to lower the impact of this diseases. The aim of endeavouring to clean up India begins with the identification of remedy to the root courses of the social ailment and enhancing the availability of therapeutic services to alter India’s nascent trend of breast cancer illness.

Authored by: Dr. Anupama Mane, Consultant- Breast Surgeon, Ruby Hall Clinic, Pune