Young women with larger than average breasts may have a higher risk of developing diabetes, a new study shows.

 

Researchers who studied over 90,000 women found those with above-average bra sizes at the age of 20 were up to 80 per cent more likely to get the disease than those with smaller breasts.

The scientists from the University of Toronto in Canada said the risks remained high, even when they allowed for whether the women were overweight, or had a family history of diabetes. This suggests breast size could be a new marker for who is most likely to develop the condition.

Around two million people in Britain are known to have diabetes but experts fear another one million are affected without realising it.

Most suffer from type two diabetes, which is often linked with fatty diets and lack of exercise. The pancreas stops producing enough insulin to help muscles mop up glucose circulating in the blood.

Left untreated, the disease can cause irreversible damage to the kidneys, eyes, nerves, heart and major arteries.

The accidental breakthrough came during brain surgery on a 50-year-old man, who was being treated for obesity.
If successful, the treatment could provide a "pacemaker" for the brain to the 417,000 people in Britain who are afflicted with the degenerative condition.
During the operation scientists had pushed electrodes into the man's brain and stimulated them with an electric current to suppress his appetite, using the increasingly successful technique of deep-brain stimulation.
But instead of losing his appetite, the patient had an intense experience of deja vu.
He recalled, in intricate detail, a scene from 30 years earlier.
More tests showed his ability to learn was dramatically improved when the current was switched on and his brain stimulated.
Scientists are now applying the technique in the first trial of the treatment to Alzheimer's patients.
Three patients have been treated and initial results are promising, according to Andres Lozano, a professor of neurosurgery at the Toronto Western Hospital, Ontario, who is leading the research.

Louise Dean is dreading the day the first of her friends announces she's pregnant.

 

"Whenever a group of us goes out, the conversation is all about "when we have children", and "Would you prefer a boy or a girl?"' she says. "I try not to show how upset I feel."

Louise will never be able to have a child of her own. Last February Louise, then 28, underwent a hysterectomy.

She had cervical cancer and although the disease is very rare at her age - fewer than 200 women under 30 are diagnosed in the UK every year - it could easily have been prevented by regular screening.

As Ellen Lang, a nurse at the charity Cancerbackup, explains: "Many young women see contraception as a priority over sexual health. They find the smear test unpleasant and so continue to put it off.

"But it's desperately important to attend every smear as most abnormalities in cervical cells are treatable if caught early."