Hormones

Some hormones factor in the development of cancer by promoting cell proliferation.^[29] Hormones are important agents in sex-related cancers such as cancer of the breast, endometrium, prostate, ovary, and testis, and also of thyroid cancer and bone cancer.^[29]

An individual's hormone levels are mostly determined genetically, so this may at least partly explains the presence of some cancers that run in families that do not seem to have any cancer-causing genes.^[29] For example, the daughters of women who have breast cancer have significantly higher levels of estrogen and progesterone than the daughters of women without breast cancer. These higher hormone levels may explain why these women have higher risk of breast cancer, even in the absence of a breast-cancer gene.^[29] Similarly, men of African ancestry have significantly higher levels of testosterone than men of European ancestry, and have a correspondingly much higher level of prostate cancer.^[29] Men of Asian ancestry, with the lowest levels of testosterone-activating androstanediol glucuronide, have the lowest levels of prostate cancer.^[29]

However, non-genetic factors are also relevant: obese people have higher levels of some hormones associated with cancer and a higher rate of those cancers.^[29] Women who take hormone replacement therapyhave a higher risk of developing cancers associated with those hormones.^[29] On the other hand, people who exercise far more than average have lower levels of these hormones, and lower risk of cancer.^[29]Osteosarcoma may be promoted by growth hormones.^[29] Some treatments and prevention approaches leverage this cause by artificially reducing hormone levels, and thus discouraging hormone-sensitive cancers.^[29]