Dense Breasts

[Kuantanamera]

I've got these - I've been told during my mammogram and now I see women that have dense breasts have 4 x the risk of breast cancer. There's an article in the Daily Mail (I know, I know) today about it.

Does anyone else get panicky when they read these things?

Does anyone know how dense their breasts are? 'Tis quite ironic because I always thought it sounded like dense breasts were big. Mine are tiny.

it is just part of getting older generally- younger women's breasts are less dense - don't start worrying unduly.

MaryAnn - my breasts have been "dense" since I was about 30 - I'm now 50

have had a quick look online to see what they say- it's always worrying to google and terrify yourself - I know too it's easy to say don't worry ! I think if you are now having regular mammograms and checking yourself that you will have a good chance of detecting anything nasty very early and early treatment has excellent results

this might be useful to know

Must correct myself- I should have said that breasts get less dense as you get older-grrr-sorry

The smaller your breasts, the denser they are. This is because the amount of glandular tissue is pretty much always the same, no matter the size of your breast - the size is made up of fat.

Generally breasts get less dense post menopause (this is why mammograms aren't recommended till later in life), so it may be your hormone levels are still high

CMOT - is that right re small breasts? Wouldn't they just put out a warning about that if that was the case ?(although what you say does make sense)

Has anyone else been told they have dense breasts or is it only me?

Yep - I learnt all about breast composition in mammography physics school.

Looking at the study, I wouldn't worry about the density of your breasts. It looks like it is a surrogate for hormone levels, and not a huge factor. Lots of other things you can do to reduce your cancer risk

What do you mean "it is like a surrogate for hormone levels" ,
Thanks

Sorry - I've been reading scientific papers all afternoon.. It means that the density of your breasts can show how high your hormone levels are even though there isn't a direct link (so you could have dense breasts and low levels, but in a group of lots of women, on average those with denser breasts had higher hormone levels in their life)