Oregon Public Broadcasting

A new study suggests what would seem to be a bizarre of risk factor for breast cancer.

OHSU researchers found that women who were born to mothers with wide hips were 7 times more likely to develop breast cancer.

The reason is that women with wide hips apparently produce greater levels of estrogen.  And that particularly affects a 10-week-old fetus.

Conventional wisdom had long held that women with small breasts and wide hips -- also known as the pear shape --  were less likely to develop breast cancer.

I asked researcher Dr. David Barker if these findings contradict that notion.

OHSU’s David Barker speaking with us about the breast cancer paper he and his colleague Kent Thornburg had published Monday in the  American Journal of Human Biology.