Breastfeeding Cuts TNBC Risk in Younger Women

Women under the age of 50 who breastfed for at least 24 months over their lifetime had a lower risk of developing triple-negative breast cancer, in a recent large-scale study conducted through multiple breast cancer research organizations. For women with three or more full-term pregnancies, risk increases two-fold if they did not breastfeed or only did so for less than a year. No increase in risk was seen for women who breast-fed for more than a year.  The  study was led by the Cancer Prevention Institute of California and epublished ahead of print on January 13 in the International Journal of Cancer.

None of these associations were observed among women age 50 or older.

So, that's why breastfeeding both my kids did not help me. I was 60 at diagnosis.

The study was based on data from 5,669 women who participated in the San Francisco Bay Area Breast Cancer Study, the Northern California site of the Breast Cancer Family Registry, and the Los Angeles County Asian American Breast Cancer Study. Of these, 558 had TNBC.