Big-breasted girls have higher risk of diabetes

6 February, 2008

A study done by Canadian researchers has revealed an interesting health fact: girls with big breasts have a 68% higher risk of getting diabetes by middle age than their counterparts with small breasts. To be specific, girls with bigger breasts at the age of 20 are at a higher risk of developing the disease in later years.

The 10-year-long study to find the link between big breasts and development of diabetes was conducted among nurses in the United States by Joel Ray, professor of medicine at the University of Toronto, Canada, and colleagues.

Dr Joel Ray wrote in the study, published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, “Our findings are based on data from the Nurses Health Study II project in 14 American states. In a nutshell, 92,102 nurses were studied for link between their breast size and their chances of developing diabetes by the age of 35. The bigger their breasts are at the age of 20, the bigger their chances of developing diabetes."

However, he added that the size of the breast could be just one of the factors – besides smoking, family history, diet, and ethnicity – that cause diabetes in women.

"Obesity,” according to Dr Joel Ray, “remains a big factor. Obese women tend to have larger breasts, thereby becoming more prone to diabetes.”

The new finding might lead to study on how breast fat influences resistance to insulin.

Dr Ray, however, warned in his article that the research was “preliminary at this stage and should not be taken at its face value. Women should not think about breast surgeries to minimize their chances of developing diabetes.”

The study also showed that that nurses with big breasts reported being “heavier” than others at young ages of 5 and 10, and entering puberty earlier. This led Dr Ray to conclude that there existed a definite link between early puberty among fat girls, resistance to insulin, and their predisposition to diabetes.

According to him, breast tissue is extremely sensitive to hormones, and since insulin is a hormone, there is resistance to it by breast tissue. A bigger breast would, therefore, mean higher resistance to insulin and higher chances of diabetes.