Women who suffer bouts of nausea and vomiting during their pregnancies may be envious of those ladies who don't, but it but it seems that going through morning sickness is a good thing after all.
Or so say boffins who have conducted a new study and found that women who suffer from morning sickness have a 30 percent lower risk of developing breast cancer later in life than expecting mums who don't.
The study was conducted epidemiologists at the University at Buffalo led by David Jaworowicz, Jr.
"Although the exact mechanism responsible for causing nausea and vomiting during pregnancy has yet to be pinpointed, it likely is a result of changing levels of ovarian and placental hormone production, which may include higher circulating levels of a hormone called human chorionic gonadotropin," he said.
This human chorionic gonadotropin hormone, Jaworowicz said may help against breast cancer as it possesses several activities that have potential protective effects against cancer cells.
"In vitro studies have shown that this hormone possesses several activities that have potential protective effects against cancer cells," said Jaworowicz, a doctoral candidate in the Department of Social Preventive Medicine in UB's School of Public Health and Health Professions.
The study was based on data from participants in the Western New York Exposure and Breast Cancer Study, a population-based case-control study of breast cancer conducted in women 35-79 from two Western New York counties between 1996 and 2001.