As reported in the Times, "there is no association between abortion and an increased risk for breast cancer". Here's the abstract from the Archives of Internal Medicine, and here's a post from The Blog That Ate Manhattan (written by a NYC gynecologist).
Got that?
Good.
24 April 2007
Abortion and Breast Cancer are NOT LINKED
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
5 comments:
Excellent post! (Thanks)
It's kind of hard to understand why, as a medical matter (rather than an ideological one) anyone would have thought they would be linked. Any idea what the theory was?
I am curious too, as niobe is, how the two might be associated in anyway. Seems like different ends of the spectrum (no pun intended!).
The theory was based on the idea that if we did not complete a pregnancy then, our hormones would go awry, exposing us to more estrogen. leading to cancer. Dumb, since miscarriages occur just as often, and there was no link there.
I think they wondered because nuns and some childless women do have a slightly higher rate of breast cancer.
Thanks for the link to the Doc blog though!
Aurelia, thanks for hopping in and answering Niobe and Leroy Dissing. The Times article said that the link had been suggested by RETROSPECTIVE studies - ones looking back and saying, hey, these people had both, therefore maybe there's a link. The new study was a PROSPECTIVE one - it looked forward - if you had an abortion, were you likely to get breast cancer? No links there.
Post a Comment