The study involved 6,000 Finnish women born between 1934 to 1944. The researchers found that a woman's risk of developing breast cancer was massively high if the hip measurement of the mother was 11.8 inches (30 cm) across. Among the participants 300 developed breast cancer and 48 succumbed to it.

“A women's hip size is a marker of her estrogen production. Wide, round hips represent markers of high sex hormone concentrations in the mother, which increase her daughter's vulnerability to breast cancer," said lead researcher Prof David Barker of Southampton University.

Reporting in the American Journal of Human Biology, the researchers said the hormone estrogen was to blame for increased breast cancer risk. Women with wide hips are thought to have high levels of this hormone and if she carried a baby for 40 weeks of pregnancy, the risk of breast cancer increased by 3.7 times.

"Our findings show for the first time that the growth spurt of girls at puberty is strongly associated with the risk of breast cancer in their daughters," Dr Barker said.

Breast cancer is the second most common cancer in women worldwide. It is also the most common cause of death after lung cancer. The American Cancer Society estimates that in 2007 about 178,480 new cases of invasive breast cancer will be diagnosed among women in the United States.

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