Studies have consistently indicated a link between later onset of menopause and increase breast cancer risk. In fact, reports show that women who go through menopause after age 55 have twice the risk of breast cancer as women who do so before age 45.
To understand why women who begin menopause later in life are at a slightly elevated risk of developing breast cancer, one must understand the role of estrogen. Estrogen in itself does not cause cancer—it is an essential part of a woman’s physiology. However, estrogen’s principal function is to speed the process of cell proliferation. So it follows that estrogen can increase the chance of a mutation occurring and/or encourage the growth of cancerous cells once they appear. The more estrogen a woman is exposed to during her lifetime, the greater the opportunity for the hormone to promote the growth of a tumor. This is why women who go through menopause later in life are at greater risk of developing breast cancer—they have had a longer lifetime exposure to estrogen.
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