A BBC News report says that obesity beats alcohol and cigarettes to emerge as “the biggest driving force behind the most common form of breast cancer!”

The news that obesity is the foremost culprit when it comes to breast cancer is based on a comprehensive analysis of how closely some lifestyle factors are associated with hormone levels in postmenopausal women --- essentially because it has already been established that higher postmenopausal hormone levels are linked to an increased risk of breast cancer.

The study – funded by Cancer Research UK, and conducted by a research team from the University of Oxford – found that obese women had higher hormone levels, predominantly oestrogen hormones, as compared to their lean counterparts.

In addition, higher hormone levels were also noticed in women who drank 2.5 or more units of alcohol (20g+) a day, or those who smoked 15 or more cigarettes.

Even though the study – which gathered data on more than 6,000 women who did not have breast cancer – noted that the association between higher Body Mass Index (BMI) and higher levels of oestrogen is not new, it additionally sought to elucidate the reason why obese, postmenopausal women generally face an increased breast cancer risk.

However, since the researchers did not analyse data on women who developed breast cancer, the findings that obesity is the “leading driver” or “biggest avoidable cause” of breast cancer may appear to be somewhat overstated!