EON

Boston (EON) – The size of a mothers hips may increase the risk of her daughter developing breast cancer, according to a new study.

An international group of researchers found that out of 6,370 finish women born from 1934 to 1944, the risk was three times higher among those born to mothers with wide hips, and nearly seven times higher among those born to mothers with wide hips and who had already given birth at least once before.

Researchers found that a woman’s chance of developing breast cancer was increase when her mother’s intercristal diameter (the widest distance between the wing-like structures at the top of the hip bone) was more than 30 centimeters (11.8 inches).

The risk of breast cancer was also higher if these wing-like structures were rounded, the team said.

Researchers note that wide hips are often associated with high sex hormone concentrations, which may books the risk of developing breast cancer in daughters.

The highest risk is during the first trimester of pregnancy, when embryo’s are exposed to a mothers circulating sex hormones, said researchers.

“Our findings support the hypothesis that wide round hips reflect high levels of sex hormone production at puberty, which persist after puberty and adversely affect breast development of the daughters in early gestation,” the study authors wrote in the online edition of the American Journal of Human Biology.