NEWS: Higher Risk Of Breast Cancer For Left Handers

With more than one million women diagnosed with breast cancer each year, scientists have released a report that states women are over twice as likely to contract breast cancer before menopause if they are left handed. Cuno Uiterwaal, an assistant professor at the University Medical Centre in Utrecht in the Netherlands and a team of researchers studied 12000 healthy women born between 1932 and 1941 and found "Left handedness is associated with breast cancer, most specifically pre-menopausal breast cancer,".



I would not have thought that hand preference would have much to do with the incident of Breast cancer, so this study surprised me. I don't know whether there is another underlying reason for the breast cancer that is also linked to left handers but it doesn't seem right to say, oh well you have breast cancer because you are left handed.

I would like to see more testing done and different methods applied before this statement and report is taken as gospel

I personally am left handed and haven't reached menopause but I am not going to start getting worried over this report as there are many many many right handed women suffering the same fate of breat cancer before menopause.

"Although the underlying mechanisms remain elusive,"

with no cause and effect, you might as well say women whose name starts with M and who like baseball more than football are more likley or whatever.

Greeeat.

I'm nulliparous, underwent puberty at 9, have a mother who had breast cancer twice (one was pre-menopausal), had a hysterectomy at 28, suffered with unopposed estrogen for years...and I'm left-handed.

Mayet, thanks for posting this - though it's true that there's no real causality yet, it's interesting nonetheless

Please take this "test" only as a rough indicator

According to this, I have a 22.9% chance of developing BC during my lifetime. Then again, I already know my risk factors and I'm working on reducing at least those I can control.