Researchers from the University of Arizona College of Public Health here tracked health records of 9,941 postmenopausal women who took part in the Women's Health Initiative, a long-term women's health study. The women were 63 years old on average at the start of the study and got a check-up that included a hip bone mineral density scan using dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA).
After eight years of consecutive follow-up, 327 women were diagnosed with breast cancer.
Researchers concluded that women with high BMD were 35 percent more likely to develop breast cancer. And for each unit of increase in total hip BMD, a woman's risk rose 25 percent.
Women with high bone density often are overweight or obese, a condition which increases their risk of breast cancer, researchers note.
The study appears in the Sept. 1 edition of Cancer.
