Recent studies in Scotland have found a connection between poverty and a rogue gene elucidating how women from poor section are more prone to breast cancer.

Researchers at the University of Dundee compared a patient's socio-economic status with the survival rate of the disease.

They also explored the occurrence of the p53 breast cancer mutation - a change which reduces the body's capacity to repress cancer.

The study that came out in the British Journal of Cancer, found that women from poor socio-economic groups suffered a high risk of having a relapse and dying from breast cancer in contrast with those from well off families.

The p53 protein that reduces cancer is constantly produced and degraded in healthy people. But if the gene is injured, then the body's ability to suppress tumors is severely reduced, said University of Dundee researchers.

According to a survey, smoking, drinking, and an unhealthy diet often leads to the p53 mutation.

Doctor Lee Baker, of the Department of Surgery and Molecular Oncology at the University of Dundee, said smoking, drinking and poor diet were more common in women from lower socio-economic groups, who are also more likely to experience a recurrence of the disease and to die as a result of breast cancer.