Breast density is often inherited, but other factors can influence it. Factors associated with higher breast density include using menopausal hormone therapy and having a low body mass index. Factors associated with lower breast density include increasing age and having children.
50% of women have dense breast tissue, but it's more common in young women, especially those with a lower body mass index. “Genetics, body mass index and age are some of the main drivers.
It's the density that matters most, since the more connective and milk duct tissue there is, the higher the risk of developing cancer. The size of your breasts has no impact on the density or vice versa.
Breast density reflects the amount of fibrous and glandular tissue in a woman's breasts compared with the amount of fatty tissue in the breasts, as seen on a mammogram. The breasts are almost entirely fatty (about 10% of women). A few areas of dense tissue are scattered through the breasts (about 40% of women).
Women with less body fat are more likely to have more dense breast tissue compared with women who are obese. Take hormone therapy for menopause. Women who take combination hormone therapy to relieve signs and symptoms of menopause are more likely to have dense breasts.
Are dense breasts common? Yes, dense breasts are common. Nearly half of all women who are 40 and older who get mammograms are found to have dense breast tissue.
“Density has nothing to do with breast weight, size or shape,” Dr.
However, women with dense breasts can consider following a dense breast tissue diet, which can help decrease breast density and have healthy breasts. We recommend: Eliminating caffeine. Decreasing or eliminating red meat.
Pettersson and colleagues [1] report that the greater the non-dense breast area (regardless of the dense breast area), the lower the breast cancer risk. In other words, fatty breasts have a protective effect on breast cancer risk.
Breast density changes with age, for example. On average, older women have lower density breast tissue than do younger women. The greatest change in density occurs during the menopause years. Breast density also changes with certain types of hormone therapies, such as hormone treatments for menopause.
How Can Losing Weight Change Your Mammogram? Breast density is directly affected by weight loss. If you are losing fatty tissue in your breasts, you will have increased breast density since there is less fatty tissue compared to glandular tissues. Denser breasts are linked to a higher risk of breast cancer.
Glandular tissues are very thin, but they are also dense. "When you have a lot of glandular tissue, that tends to make the breast a little firmer and a little less saggy," says Abdur-Rahman.
No — breast density is determined by genetics, age, menopause status and family history. Weight gain and certain medications can also influence your breast density. Though your breast density can't be changed, information is power.
Having dense breasts is normal; it is not a medical condition itself, and it does not cause symptoms. You can't tell whether or not you have dense tissue by feeling the breasts.
Breasts are called dense when a mammogram shows more fibrous tissue and less fat. Do dense breasts feel different? Dense breasts don't feel any different than breasts with more fatty tissue. This means you can't tell if you have dense breasts on your own or with a clinical breast exam.
While exercise can decrease the amount of fat in the breast, the glandular or dense breast tissue is not affected by exercise. So, if a woman loses a lot of weight due to exercise, her breasts can appear more dense due to loss of fat (the amount of fat decreases while the amount of dense tissue remains the same) [1].
Breast density has nothing to do with firmness or size, Friedlander says. “Dense breasts are not something that you can notice or that your doctor can feel on physical examination. It's a designation purely defined by what your mammogram pictures look like.”
Women who follow a regular Western diet of high-fat dairy products, red meat consumption, and high-sugar foods are at greater risk of maintaining dense breast tissue and are more inclined to develop breast cancer.
The research recommends that women older than 50 with dense breast tissue who have higher-than-normal risk of developing breast cancer should get annual mammograms.
Combination of higher intakes of vitamin D and calcium (≥100 IU/d and ≥750 mg/d, respectively) were associated with a reduction of breast densities (OR, 0.28; 95% confidence interval, 0.15–0.54) compared with those consuming <100 IU/d and <750 mg/d.
Mammographic density is a strong risk factor for breast cancer, but the underlying biology for this association is unknown. Studies suggest that vitamin D may reduce breast cancer risk and dietary vitamin D intake has been associated with reduced breast density.
As females get older, their bodies start to produce less of the reproductive hormone estrogen than before. Estrogen stimulates the growth of breast tissue, while low levels of this hormone cause the mammary glands to shrink.
Roughly half of women ages 40 to 74 have dense breasts. The breasts of aging women become less dense over time, although nearly a third of all women age 65 and older still have dense breasts, Braithwaite said.
Radiologists use mammogram images to grade breast tissue based on the proportion of dense to nondense tissue. According to the BI-RADS reporting system, the levels are (from left to right) almost entirely fatty, scattered areas of fibroglandular density, heterogeneously dense and extremely dense.