Does An Increasing Skirt Size Increase Your Breast Cancer Risk?

Is the scale slowly creeping upwards? According to Prevention, fitting into last year's skinny [...]

Is the scale slowly creeping upwards? According to Prevention, fitting into last year's skinny jeans may not be your only worry. A study published in BMJ tells us that if you are going up a skirt size every decade between the age of 20-60 you could be 33% more likely to get postmenopausal breast cancer.

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These findings come from personal health questionnaires completed by more than 90,000 postmenopausal women, all of whom were taking part in a cancer screening trial. Of those 90,000+ women, roughly 1,000 developed breast cancer, according to the UK study team. After adjusting for other risk factors like family history of cancer, the study team linked a growing waist circumference to a greater risk for the disease.

For women who went up two skirt sizes per decade, the picture gets bleaker: A two-size increase increased their breast cancer risk by 77% compared to women who did not experience this level of mid-body weight gain.

To be clear: If you're 50 or 60 and don't fit into those skirts your wore back in your 20s, that's not reason to worry. But if you wore a size 6 during your 20s and now, at age 55, you wear a size 12, you'd fall into the elevated risk category the study identified.

>>Read more: 6 Best and Newest Ways to Spot Cancer

What does your skirt size have to do with your breast cancer risk? Research is piling up that suggests body weight, and especially weight around your midsection, can contribute to the development of cancer.

>>Read more: 50 Cool Products You Can Buy That Support Breast Cancer Research

To read more on the topic, click here to be taken to the original story on Prevention.

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