WHAT ABOUT THE RISK IN OLDER OVERWEIGHT WOMEN?

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We have discussed the problem of the increased cancer risk of the overweight man (especially the overweight older man), but what about the increased cancer risk of the overweight woman, especially the overweight older woman? Fat cells, in the adipose tissue (or fat depots, as they are sometimes called) do produce estrogen in men and extra amounts of estrogen in women. The reason for this is that the adrenal gland makes a steroid precursor to estrogen, and this steroid precursor is transformed into active estrogen in fat cells. It has been shown that overweight women are about 50% more likely to get breast cancer than women of normal weight, and the likelyhood of cancer is greater for those women whose excess weight is mostly above the waist.(ref. in Michnovicz book) In women who have not yet reached menopause, any extra estrogen produced by fat cells can be compensated for by the normal negative feedback mechanism which involves gonadotropic releasing hormone from the hypothalamus of the brain acting upon the anterior pituitary to produce less follicle stimulating and luteinizing hormones. But the failure of this mechanism to function well after menopause will then put the post-menopausal woman at greater risk for steroid-involved cancer. A National Cancer Institute research program called the "SEER" program (Surveilance Epidemiological and End Result) concluded that the risk of breast cancer approximately doubles after menopause.