The number of moles a woman has on her skin may hint at her risk of developing breast cancer, new research suggests. In two separate studies, American and French scientists found that the more moles a woman had, the greater her average risk of breast cancer. In one study, women with 15 or more moles on a single arm were 35 percent more likely to develop breast cancer than women with no moles.
While the connection between moles and breast cancer is not obvious, experts pointed to one plausible explanation: estrogen. The hormone is known to feed the growth and spread of many breast tumors. And there is also some evidence it influences mole growth; moles tend to get larger and darken during pregnancy, for instance. But that’s speculation for now. And there could be other underlying reasons for the association — even some kind of genetic factor.
Advice to women with numerous moles on their skin: Don’t panic. This is very interesting biologically, but it probably doesn’t tell us a lot about an individual woman’s risk of breast cancer. It probably tells us more about the general causes of breast cancer. A lot more research is needed before these findings could be used in routine practice. There’s no proof that women with a lot of moles should start breast cancer screening earlier or have it more often.
In one of the studies, researchers of the Indiana University Simon Cancer Center in Indianapolis, looked at data on more than 74,000 female nurses in the United States.The findings were similar in the second study, which followed nearly 90,000 French women aged 40 to 65. There was one key difference, though: moles were linked to an increased risk only among women who developed breast cancer before menopause. The reasons are not clear but again the researchers suggested hormones or genes could be involved.
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