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Her Metabolism is a Minnesota USA Nonprofit (501c3), offering free nonpartisan evidence-based science and education about her metabolism.

 

Delayed Motherhood and Breast Cancer

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Updated and Verified: October 05, 2024 (News page records significant changes.)

Mainstream science shows that delayed motherhood creates countless massive metabolic health risks and harms for a woman, especially a teen woman. One stunning example (which has been common knowledge for the better part of a century) is that when a woman chooses to delay motherhood, her metabolism becomes so weak that she will statistically skyrocket her breast cancer risk in her life. Indeed, a teen woman who gives birth will statistically drop her risk of breast cancer to about half of the risk that faces older mothers (age > 19) - and drop her risk to only 30% of the general breast cancer risk of a woman who waits to be a mother until she is very old (age > 29). Contrapositively, this means that a woman who waits for motherhood until her 20s will double her risk of breast cancer, compared to when she was a teenage woman - and the same woman will triple her risk if she postpones motherhood until her 30s. This is according to research and analysis published in 1970 by the World Health Organization,1 then cited and extended in 2002 by the Journal of Mammary Gland Biology and Neoplasia2 - then cited and extended in 2016 by the National Cancer Institute.3

References

References

  1. MacMahon B, Cole P, Lin TM, et al. Age at first birth and breast cancer risk. Bulletin of the World Health Organization. 1970;43(2):209-221. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2427645/
  2. Bernstein L. Epidemiology of endocrine-related risk factors for breast cancer. J Mammary Gland Biol Neoplasia. 2002;7(1):3-15. http://doi.org/doi:10.1023/a:1015714305420
  3. Reproductive history and cancer risk. National Institutes of Health: National Cancer Institute. Published November 9, 2016. Accessed May 23, 2024. https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/causes-prevention/risk/hormones/reproductive-history-fact-sheet

Medical, Legal, and Metabolic Advice

Here in the USA, it is generally illegal and a bad idea for anyone but a jurisdiction-licensed physician to give medical advice, anyone but a jurisdiction-licensed attorney to give legal advice, anyone but a jurisdiction-licensed nutritionist or registered dietician to give metabolic advice, and so forth. This website's information is generally incomplete to predict how applying it may affect a given visitor - because the effects depend on the person's unique circumstances and characteristics.

So, here is the only medical, legal, and metabolic advice on this website: None of this website is individualized medical, legal, or metabolic advice. It is general information. You should not try to apply any of this information to your life, unless you know what you are doing. Generally, the governments of USA's jurisdictions (states and territories) declare two things through law:

  1. Without the guidance of a jurisdiction-licensed physician, attorney, or nutritionist: you do not know what you are doing, so it is unwise and unsafe for you to make too many decision about your medical, legal, and metabolic status and circumstances, and
  2. no one but a licensed physician, attorney, or nutritionist can safely and effectively advise you about those statuses and circumstances - thus, it is generally illegal for anyone else to try.

Obviously, those standards are extremely conservative, if not heavy-handed. However, one should remember that many of those people in government who uphold such strict standards have seen the stuff of nightmares: predictable, preventable, terrible consequences when the least capable and least conscientious people make the worst decisions - whether medically, legally, nutritionally, or otherwise. So, it is not wildly unreasonable to promote - even to legally command - erring on the safe side. Still, various jurisdictions do provide some exceptions to those exceptionally strict standards under law.

Here in Minnesota (and in many other U.S. states and territories) a person can help you with certain aspects of your medical, legal, and metabolic status and circumstances - even when that person is not formally licensed by the jurisdiction. Minnesota, for example, allows various people besides licensed nutritionists and registered dieticians to give metabolic advice and guidance: certain Complementary and Alternative Health Care providers, which Minnesota allows under law. Minn. Stat. ยง 146A. Thus, one need not feel completely locked into the strict standards listed above (though jurisdictions do typically still hold alternative providers to certain basic standards under law). Instead, in the USA, one can discuss the information on this website, and receive guidance about it, from various experts - whether jurisdiction-licensed or not. Meanwhile, this thorough and smart-sounding notice and explanation should not tempt any visitor into having any extra trust for the information in this website. At most, as the saying goes: "trust but verify."

Sincerely,

Dr. R. Floyd Lindquist

Her Metabolism: Founder, Treasurer, Secretary, Lead Data Scientist, and Director of Communications and Research

PhD (Thanatology), PsyD (Psychology), DLP (Law and Policy), MPH (Nutrition & Epidemiology), MS (Nutrition), MA (Counseling)

floyd[at]hermetabolism[dot]org

Her Metabolism is a Minnesota Nonprofit (501c3)