Prolactin levels, breast-feeding and milk production in a cohort of young healthy women from high-risk breast cancer families: implications for breast cancer risk.
High prolactin levels have been associated with increased breast cancer risk. Prolactin is essential for breast-feeding. Prolactin is lowered primarily by the first full-term pregnancy and not by subsequent pregnancies. The protection from breast cancer conferred by a long breast-feeding duration (>1 year) seems to be much greater for women with BRCA1 mutations (45%) than for women in the general