Fruit and vegetable intake is associated with lower risk of ER- breast cancer
2013-01-25
(Press-News.org) There is no association between total fruit and vegetable intake and risk of overall breast cancer, but vegetable consumption is associated with a lower risk of estrogen receptor-negative (ER-) breast cancer, according to a study published January 24 in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
The intake of fruits and vegetables has been hypothesized to lower breast cancer risk, however the existing evidence is inconclusive. There are many subtypes of breast cancer including ER- and ER positive (ER+) tumors and each may have distinct etiologies. Since ER- tumors, which have lower survival rates and are less dependent on estrogen levels than ER+ tumors, account for only 15-20% of breast cancers, large pooled analyses are needed to determine the suspected link to lower ER- breast cancer risk and the consumption of fruits and vegetables.
In order to determine if there is a link between the lowered risk of ER- breast cancers and the intake of fruits and vegetables, Seungyoun Jung, Sc.D., formerly from the Department of Nutrition, Harvard School of Public Health, and currently at the Channing Division of Network Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital, and colleagues analyzed data from 20 cohort studies of women who were followed for a maximum of 11-20 years. They investigated the association of high compared to low intake of fruit and vegetables and risk of developing breast cancer in each study and then combined the study-specific estimates to generate summary estimates for all studies combined.
The researchers found that total fruit and vegetable intake was statistically significantly linked to a lower risk of ER- breast cancer, but not with risk of overall breast cancer or risk of ER+ breast tumors. The results showed that the lower risk was mostly associated with higher vegetable consumption. "These findings support the value of examining etiologic factors in relation to breast cancer characterized by hormone receptor status in large pooled analyses because modest associations with less common breast cancer subtypes may have been missed in smaller studies," the authors write.
In an accompanying editorial, Cynthia A. Thomson, Ph.D., and Patricia A. Thompson, Ph.D., both of the University of Arizona Cancer Center, write that the findings of the study support the emphasis on greater intake for vegetables (and to a lesser extent fruit) to lower the risk of ER- breast cancer. However, they also write that, "interpretation of these findings may also be challenged by the known effects of other potential confounders, including the aggregation of health behaviors."
INFORMATION:Contact Info:
Article: Marjorie Montemayor-Quellenberg, MMONTEMAYOR-QUELLENBERG@partners.org
Editorial: Cynthia A. Thomson, Ph.D., cthomson@u.arizona.edu
END
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
2013-01-25
The authors say spotting it early could substantially reduce the risk, and this needs to become a cornerstone of safety and effectiveness in antenatal care.
Stillbirth rates in the United Kingdom are among the highest in developed countries. They have often been considered unexplained and unavoidable, and their rates have changed little over the last two decades.
Recently, doctors have found that many stillborn babies fail to reach their growth potential, prompting a renewed focus on what causes fetal growth restriction. So a team of researchers at the West Midlands ...
2013-01-25
New research reveals a potential way for how parents' experiences could be passed to their offspring's genes. The research was published today, 25 January, in the journal Science.
Epigenetics is a system that turns our genes on and off. The process works by chemical tags, known as epigenetic marks, attaching to DNA and telling a cell to either use or ignore a particular gene.
The most common epigenetic mark is a methyl group. When these groups fasten to DNA through a process called methylation they block the attachment of proteins which normally turn the genes on. ...
2013-01-25
BOSTON—Two new mutations that collectively occur in 71 percent of malignant melanoma tumors have been discovered in what scientists call the "dark matter" of the cancer genome, where cancer-related mutations haven't been previously found.
Reporting their findings in the Jan. 24 issue of Science Express, the researchers from Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and the Broad Institute said the highly "recurrent" mutations – occurring in the tumors of many people – may be the most common mutations in melanoma cells found to date.
The researchers said these cancer-associated ...
2013-01-25
(Edmonton) A University of Alberta professor has revealed the workings of a celestial event involving binary stars that results in an explosion so powerful it ranks close to Supernovae in luminosity.
Astrophysicists have long debated about what happens when binary stars, two stars that orbit one another, come together in a common envelope.
When this dramatic cannibalizing event ends there are two possible outcomes; the two stars merge into a single star or an initial binary transforms in an exotic short-period one.
The event is believed to take anywhere from a dozen ...
2013-01-25
(MEMPHIS, Tenn. – January 24, 2013) Genome sequencing data once regarded as junk is now being used to gain important clues to help understand disease. The latest example comes from the St. Jude Children's Research Hospital – Washington University Pediatric Cancer Genome Project, where scientists have developed an approach to mine the repetitive segments of DNA at the ends of chromosomes for insights into cancer.
These segments, known as telomeres, had previously been ignored in next-generation sequencing efforts. That is because their repetitive nature meant that the ...
2013-01-25
ITHACA, N.Y. – With projections of 9.5 billion people by 2050, humanity faces the challenge of feeding modern diets to additional mouths while using the same amounts of water, fertilizer and arable land as today.
Cornell University researchers have taken a leap toward meeting those needs by discovering a gene that could lead to new varieties of staple crops with 50 percent higher yields.
The gene, called Scarecrow, is the first discovered to control a special leaf structure, known as Kranz anatomy, which leads to more efficient photosynthesis. Plants photosynthesize ...
2013-01-25
Have you ever woken up to a sunny forecast only to get soaked on your way to the office? On days like that it's easy to blame the weatherman.
But BYU mechanical engineering professor Julie Crockett doesn't get mad at meteorologists. She understands something that very few people know: it's not the weatherman's fault he's wrong so often.
According to Crockett, forecasters make mistakes because the models they use for predicting weather can't accurately track highly influential elements called internal waves.
Atmospheric internal waves are waves that propagate between ...
2013-01-25
Maternal inflammation during early pregnancy may be related to an increased risk of autism in children, according to new findings supported by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), part of the National Institutes of Health. Researchers found this in children of mothers with elevated C-reactive protein (CRP), a well-established marker of systemic inflammation.
The risk of autism among children in the study was increased by 43 percent among mothers with CRP levels in the top 20th percentile, and by 80 percent for maternal CRP in the top 10th ...
2013-01-25
In biology, molecules can have multi-way interactions within cells, and until recently, computational analysis of these links has been "incomplete," according to T. M. Murali, associate professor of computer science in the College of Engineering at Virginia Tech.
His group authored an article on their new approach to address these shortcomings, titled "Reverse Engineering Molecular Hypergraphs," that received the Best Paper Award at the recent 2012 ACM Conference on Bioinformatics, Computational Biology and Biomedicine.
Intricate networks of connections among molecules ...
2013-01-25
Bullying, whether it's physical aggression or spreading rumors, boosts the social status and popularity of middle school students, according to a new UCLA psychology study that has implications for programs aimed at combatting school bullying. In addition, students already considered popular engage in these forms of bullying, the researchers found.
The psychologists studied 1,895 ethnically diverse students from 99 classes at 11 Los Angeles middle schools. They conducted surveys at three points: during the spring of seventh grade, the fall of eighth grade and the spring ...
LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:
[Press-News.org] Fruit and vegetable intake is associated with lower risk of ER- breast cancer
