Costumes For Sale Are Displayed Before The West Indian Day Parade in Brooklyn
Costumes for sale are displayed before the West Indian Day Parade in the Brooklyn borough of New York September 1, 2014. Reuters/Eric Thayer

A new study by British researchers has found that if a woman's skirt size went up every 10 years, there was an increase in chances of developing breast cancer by 33 percent. It suggests that staying in the same skirt size minimises the chances of breast cancer.

Head of the Gynecological Cancer Research Center at University College London and lead researcher of the study, Dr Usha Menon, said their study showed an increase of one size every 10 years in women between 25 and post-menopausal ages was linked with higher risk of breast cancer, reports WebMD.

The study, published in BMJ Open on Sept 24, involved data about around 93,000 women who had enrolled in a British database for the purpose of cancer screening. The data was collected between 2005 and 2010, and all participants were above the age of 50, with none of them having a diagnosis of breast cancer. Information like height, weight and BMI in addition to details about factors like fertility, family history of ovarian or breast cancer, and use of birth control and hormone replacement therapy were provided by the women.

Initially, when the women entered the study, they offered their current skirt size as well as what it had been in their 20s. For 3 to 4 years, the women were monitored by the researchers. Questions regarding general health and cancer diagnosis found that around 1,000 women were diagnosed with cancer.

The average skirt size of the women at the age of 25 was 8, while the average size was a 10 at the average age of 64, the study found. Seventy-five percent of the women showed an increase in their skirt size.

In the case of skirt size increasing by two sizes in every 10 years, the chances of breast cancer was up by 77 percent. Dr Menon estimated that for every size increase in 10 years, the 5-year risk of developing breast cancer post-menopause increased from one in 61 to one in 51.

Dr Menon explained that factors like family history, as well as use of hormonal replacement, were linked with an increase in risk of breast cancer, but increasing skirt sizes was found to be a strong predictor. She added it was just an observational study and no definitive conclusion could be drawn from it.