THURSDAY, July 2 (HealthDay News) -- There is no strong association between metabolic syndrome and increased risk of breast cancer, but there is an association between some of the components of the syndrome and increased risk of the disease, according to a study published online June 30 in Cancer Epidemiology Biomarkers & Prevention.

Geoffrey C. Kabat, Ph.D., of Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City, and colleagues conducted a study of 4,888 women who provided data at baseline and were followed up for eight years to see if metabolic syndrome was associated with higher incidence of breast cancer.

There were 165 incident cases of breast cancer, and there was no increased incidence among women with metabolic syndrome, the researchers found. However, when they analyzed the data by the individual components of the metabolic syndrome, there was a borderline positive association between breast cancer and diastolic blood pressure, and time-dependent covariate analyses showed a positive association with breast cancer and serum glucose, serum triglycerides, and diastolic blood pressure.

"Our results provide some support for an association between the metabolic syndrome and breast cancer risk, but need to be interpreted with caution," the authors write. "Certain time-dependent analyses showed significant associations of both the metabolic syndrome per se and glucose, triglycerides, and diastolic blood pressure with breast cancer risk. However, only baseline diastolic blood pressure showed any association with risk."

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