A study of more than 100,000 immigrant women in Denmark shows that the risk of breast cancer doubles already in the first generation, reports metroXpress.
According to Danish and international studies, women from Africa, Asia, the Middle-East and the Balkans get breast-cancer half as often as Danish women. But a new study shows that growing up in Denmark doubles the risk of breast cancer.
Marie Nørredam of the Research Center for Immigration, Ethnicity and Health at copenhagen University, says that the special protection immigrant women have against breast-cancer, disappears in the second generation.
Lau Casper Thygesen of the University of Southern Denmark says that this might mean there are other risk factors besides the known ones: tobacco, alcohol and having children later. He thinks this might answer why Danish women top the list in breast-cancer. This might "mean that there's something wrong with our understanding of the risk factors, since these women, who are mostly Muslim, naturally didn't suddenly begin to smoke, drink and have children too late," Lau Casper Thygesen told metroXpress.
Source: metroXpress (Danish)
