breast feeding and breast cancers

I was doing some reading up on my specific gene mutation (BRCA2) and there is a genetic code behind it.. and it basically says that BRCA 1 gene mutations seem to be suseptable to hormones and breast feeding your children and for longer periods and even the more children you have can reduce your breast cancer risks but if you are BRCA 2, which I am, you can breast feed a whole village, for your entire life and your risk of breast cancer wont change (or change minimally)

That sucks, because I was determined to breast feed for as long as i could (16ish months for Mira) and one of the many reasons was to reduce BC risks. Well, at least she got all that liquid gold!

This is what that article said:

Generally, longer exposure to estrogen increases the risk of breast cancer. Women who began menstruating at an early age, who experience late menopause, who never had children, or who took hormone replacement therapy for extended periods of time are at greater risk of breast cancer. Women who had their first child after age 30 are also at increased risk. Women with more dense breast tissue (a high proportion of lobular and ductal tissue) are also at greater risk.

Breast feeding for more than one year reduces the risk of breast cancer in BRCA1 mutation carriers but not in BRCA2 mutation carriers. Previous studies have shown that the relative risk of breast cancer in the general population decreases by 4.3% for every 12 months of breast feeding. There is also a 7% decrease in risk for each child. A 2004 study of 685 BRCA1 women and 280 BRCA2 women found that BRCA1 mutation carriers who breast fed for more than one year had a 44% reduction in the incidence of breast cancer. But the remaining risk of breast cancer was still high, around 40%. There was no decrease in risk for BRCA2 mutation carriers. (Other studies have shown that the risk of breast cancer in BRCA mutation carriers is increased by early parity and the risk increases with the number of pregnancies.) This suggests that the risks associated with the BRCA1 mutation are sensitive to hormone changes while the risks associated with the BRCA2 mutation are not.