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Shanghai scientists link decrease in breast-feeding to rise in breast cancer

MORE Chinese women getting breast cancer and contracting the disease younger than in the West has been linked by local scientists to a decrease in breast-feeding due to China’s one-child policy.

Shanghai has seen the number of breast cancer cases double in the past 20 years. It is the commonest female cancer in the city with around 4,000 women diagnosed every year.

Breast-feeding is important to overall breast health, said Dr Shao Zhimin from the Shanghai Cancer Hospital of Fudan University, speaking yesterday before the opening of an International Breast Cancer Forum.

However, China’s birth-rate has fallen since China adopted a one-child policy in the late 1970s, meaning women breast-feed less than previous generations.

While in the West, the peak ages for women contracting breast cancer are in their 60s and 70s, in China, women aged between 45 and 55 and 70 and 74, are most likely to get the disease, the study by the Fudan team found.

The researchers linked this first spike to most women in China between 45 and 55 having only one child.

However, Shao said the recent relaxation of the one-child policy may see this change.

A policy has been introduced allowing couples of whom only one comes from a one-child family to have a second child.

Over the next 20 years, China’s pattern for breast cancer should come to more resemble Western countries, Shao said.

Other factors linked to breast cancer include age, hereditary factors, early puberty, late menopause, smoking, obesity and the improper intake of estrogen.

In China, there are more than 210,000 new breast cancer patients every year — 12 percent of all new cases in the world.




 

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