Study: Women Who Suffer Hot Flashes at Lower Risk for Breast Cancer

For menopausal women, hot flashes and sweats aren't usually something to look forward to, but new studies show these inconveniences may actually be a good sign.

Researchers at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle found that women who experience these menopausal symptoms may have a 50 percent lower risk of developing the most common forms of breast cancer compared to other postmenopausal women.

Dr. Christopher Li, Rift Goldsenior study author and breast cancer epidemiologist at the Hutchinson Center's Public Health Sciences Division, and his colleagues suspected a link between menopausal symptoms and breast cancer due to hormones such as estrogen and their role in the development of breast cancers.

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Li told AOL Health that women who experienced particularly intense hot flashes actually had the lowest risk of breast cancer.RIFT Platinum He and his research team posited that since fluctuations in hormone levels cause menopausal symptoms, those suffering the most severe symptoms would have the lowest estrogen levels and, therefore, the lowest risk of developing breast cancer.

The study, funded by the National Cancer Institute and published in Cancer Epidemiology Biomarkers and Prevention, was based on interviews with 1,437 postmenopausal Seattle-area women. Nine-hundred-ninety-eight of the women had been previously diagnosed with breast cancer,rift gold and 449 had not. These women were surveyed about perimenopausal and menopausal symptoms ranging from night sweats and hot flashes to anxiety and depression.

Researchers found a 40 to 60 percent reduction in the risk of the two most common types of breast cancer among women who experienced hot flashes and other symptoms. RIFT PlatinumThese associations between symptoms and decreased cancer risk did not change even after researchers accounted for other factors such as obesity and use of hormone replacement therapies known to increase the risk of breast cancer.

Li believes these results may point to new methods of breast cancer prevention, but more studies need to be completed to fully understand what is happening.

"If we can understand the biologies, we can better develop new preventative strategies," Li says.

The link between menopausal symptoms and hormones has been known for quite sometime, but according to Dr. Debbie Saslow,TERA Gold director of Breast and Gynecological Cancers at the American Cancer Society, this study now shows the link between hormones and breast cancer risk.

So if this new study can help us better understand how hormones may impact breast cancer, could it also provide insights about the links between hormornes and other female cancers like ovarian and uterine cancers?

"Sometimes the link is the opposite of breast cancer," explains Saslow. Hormonal factors can sometimes affect these cancers in the same way, but other times hormones have totally different impacts in each type of cancer, she said.

Li believes it's worth further research, however. "I think that it's possible there are links," he says.