A new study suggests that women, who have higher levels of insulin in blood, are more prone to breast cancer that the women with its lower levels.

Higher levels of insulin are already linked with obesity and according to a team from Albert Einstein College, New York City it may also serve as a link between breast cancer and obesity.

In their study, the researchers made a comparison of insulin levels of 835 women who had breast cancer with 816 women who hadn’t developed the disease. All the participants of the study were taking part in the study of Women’s Health Initiative. The researchers found that women with higher levels of insulin had a considerable higher risk for breast cancer than the women with lower levels of insulin.

This risk was found even higher in the women who were not on hormone therapy. It was found that women with higher levels of insulin had 2.4 times higher risk of developing breast cancer than the women with its lower levels.

The study has been published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Dec. 30 issue.

Different laboratory tests suggest that insulin stimulates the development of breast cells and obesity has emerged as a risk for the development of breast cancer, the American Cancer Society says.