Breast Cancer survivors tend to gain more weight

Among women with a family history of breast cancer, breast cancer survivors tend to gain more weight than women who are free of the disease, new research suggests.
And that added weight might increase the risk of heart disease and diabetes, as well as recurrence of the cancer, the researchers said.
The researchers compared 303 breast cancer survivors with 307 women who were cancer-free. All were participants in a study of women with a familial risk of breast and ovarian cancer. They included women with BRCA1 and BRCA2 gene mutations that can raise breast cancer risk.
"We found that breast cancer survivors, especially those with chemotherapy, gained more weight compared to cancer-free women," said lead researcher Amy Gross.

Overall, breast cancer survivors gained an average of about 4 pounds more than their cancer-free counterparts in the first five years after diagnosis, Gross and her colleagues found. Those who were diagnosed with estrogen receptor-negative breast cancer, which doesn't need estrogen to grow, gained an average of 7 pounds more than the cancer-free women.

those who had chemotherapy gained even more weight. "We found that the survivors who had received chemotherapy were twice as likely to have gained at least 11 pounds (compared to cancer-free women)," Gross said.