A recent study has revealed that women who take the medicines, called bisphosphonates, to treat brittle and weak bones might end up cutting down their risk of developing breast cancer. The new findings suggest that pills taken for osteoporosis might help women at the risk of contracting breast cancer, as well as the survivors.

For the sake of research, experts analyzed nearly 3,000 women who had been diagnosed with breast cancer to an almost similar number of females who did not have the disease. The researchers looked for various characteristics in the two groups that could end up explaining an increased risk of cancer, including whether these females had taken bisphosphonates.

All the women who had used the medicine for the longest time, two years or more that is, were discovered to be 40% less likely to contract breast cancer, as compared to women to had never used the pill.

The study was carried out by Dr. Polly Newcomb and colleagues from the University of Wisconsin in the US, and supported by the National Cancer Institute of the US National Institutes of Health.

Details of the study have been published in the British Journal of Cancer.