Obesity and Height in Urban Nigerian Women with Breast Cancer

PURPOSE: To examine the relationship between obesity, height, and breast cancer in an urban Nigerian population. METHODS: Between March 1998 and August 2000, we conducted a case-control study of hospital-based breast cancer patients (n = 234) and population-based controls (n = 273) using nurse interviewers in urban Southwestern Nigeria. RESULTS: The study did not find a significant association between obesity (BMI ⩾ 30) and breast cancer among all women (OR = 1.51, 95% CI = 0.87–2.62) pre- (OR = 1.21, 95% CI = 0.56–2.60) and post-menopausal breast cancer patients (OR = 1.82, 95% CI = 0.78–4.31) in multivariate logistic regression analysis, while increasing height was positively associated with the risk of breast cancer among all women (OR = 1.05, 1.01 – 1.08), pre- (1.06, 1.01–1.10) and post-menopausal women (1.07, 1.01–1.13) for each cm. Age, irregular period, and early age of onset of periods were also found to be significantly associated with breast cancer risk. CONCLUSION: This study failed to demonstrate an association between breast cancer risk and obesity while showing that height is positively associated with risk of breast cancer in urbanized Nigerian women.