How do I know if I have dense breast tissue? Many women who have firmer breasts assume they have dense breast tissue. However, having dense breasts means you have more connective and glandular tissue than fatty tissue. This can only be determined by having a mammogram reviewed by a radiologist.
Glandular tissues are very thin, but they are also dense. "When you have a lot of glandular tissue, that tends to make the breast a little firmer and a little less saggy," says Abdur-Rahman.
You can have dense breasts and not know it—until you have a mammogram. Dense breasts don't have a certain size or shape. And breasts that feel firm aren't necessarily dense. In fact, the only way to determine breast density is with a mammogram.
The perkier and firmer your breasts feel, the more dense they may be, but there are ligaments and other tissues that cause hardness or lumps that are unrelated to the amount of fibrous tissue.
Dense breast tissue cannot be felt by a woman, such as during a breast self-exam, or by her doctor during a clinical breast exam. Only a radiologist looking at a mammogram can tell if a woman has dense breasts.
Breasts are called dense when a mammogram shows more fibrous tissue and less fat. Do dense breasts feel different? Dense breasts don't feel any different than breasts with more fatty tissue. This means you can't tell if you have dense breasts on your own or with a clinical breast exam.
No. Breast pain or tenderness is not related to breast density. Breast pain that comes and goes is often because of changes in hormones due to your period and is most common on the sides of your breasts (near your arms and underarms).
50% of women have dense breast tissue, but it's more common in young women, especially those with a lower body mass index. “Genetics, body mass index and age are some of the main drivers.
Women with dense breasts have a higher chance of getting breast cancer. The more dense your breasts are, the higher your risk. Scientists don't know for sure why this is true. Breast cancer patients who have dense breasts are not more likely to die from breast cancer than patients with non-dense (fatty) breasts.
Have a lower body mass index — Women with less body fat are more likely to have more dense breast tissue compared with women who are obese. Take hormone therapy for menopause — Women who take combination hormone therapy to relieve signs and symptoms of menopause are more likely to have dense breasts.
Similarly, the firmness of the breasts is not a factor in determining whether they are dense or not. A firm breast is not necessarily dense and vice versa. The firmness of the breasts is due to the elasticity of the skin. If the skin becomes slack, the breasts will become less firm.
Pettersson and colleagues [1] report that the greater the non-dense breast area (regardless of the dense breast area), the lower the breast cancer risk. In other words, fatty breasts have a protective effect on breast cancer risk.
Breast density changes with age, for example. On average, older women have lower density breast tissue than do younger women. The greatest change in density occurs during the menopause years. Breast density also changes with certain types of hormone therapies, such as hormone treatments for menopause.
One out of every two women age 40 and over has dense breast tissue and all women experience changes in their breast density as they get older.
Fibrocystic breast changes lead to the development of fluid-filled round or oval sacs, called cysts. The cysts can make breasts feel tender, lumpy or ropy. They feel distinct from other breast tissue. Fibrocystic breasts are composed of tissue that feels lumpy or ropelike in texture.
What Are Dense Breasts? Breast density has nothing to do with your bra size or how your breasts look or feel. It's not the same thing as having lumpy (fibrocystic) breasts either. If you have dense breasts, it means that you have a sizeable amount of fibrous or glandular tissue (versus fatty tissue) in your breasts.
Breast density describes the amount of fibrous and glandular tissue compared with the amount of fat. There are different levels of dense breasts. Some are more common than others. About 1 out of every 10 women have very dense breasts.
The research recommends that women older than 50 with dense breast tissue who have higher-than-normal risk of developing breast cancer should get annual mammograms.
Given the variability of these factors, breast density reporting can fluctuate year to year. For example, if your weight fluctuates, one year a woman may be told she has dense breasts, and the next year that they are not.
Fat content in what you eat and exercise do not directly change breast density. But if you lose or gain a lot of weight, your breasts can look more or less dense on your mammogram – though the amount of dense tissue will stay the same.
Breast density is directly affected by weight loss. If you are losing fatty tissue in your breasts, you will have increased breast density since there is less fatty tissue compared to glandular tissues. Denser breasts are linked to a higher risk of breast cancer.
"We know that omega-3s help decrease inflammation in the body," she says. "You can also eat walnuts and seeds if you want a non-animal source." And just like olive oil, eating more omega-3s may also be linked to a reduction in breast density, according to a 2014 study in Cancer Causes & Control.
Most women below the age of 50 have increased breast density compared with those aged over 50. International research shows that about 25% of women over the age of 60 continue to have dense breasts. A range of other factors also contribute to breast density such as hormones, Body Mass Index and genetics.
Roughly half of women ages 40 to 74 have dense breasts. The breasts of aging women become less dense over time, although nearly a third of all women age 65 and older still have dense breasts, Braithwaite said.