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Women’s Health Newsflash: Breast Cancer - April 9, 2008

by Kristen King on April 9th, 2008

Who has time to read it all? Here’s a quick rundown of what you need to know in recent women’s health news. Today’s topic: Breast cancer.

Eating Soy Foods In Puberty Protects Against Breast Cancer, Evidence Now Suggests

Evidence is growing from animal and human studies that genistein, a potent chemical found in soy, protects against development of breast cancer - but only if consumed during puberty, says a Georgetown University Medical Center researcher in the British Journal of Cancer. The challenge now, she says, is for scientists to understand precisely why soy appears to provide a shield against the most common cancer in women. Keep Reading >>>

Green Tea Ingredient, EGCG, Significantly Inhibits Breast Cancer Growth In Female Mice

Green tea is high in the antioxidant EGCG (epigallocatechin-3- gallate) which helps prevent the body’s cells from becoming damaged and prematurely aged. Studies have suggested that the combination of green tea and EGCG may also be beneficial by providing protection against certain types of cancers, including breast cancer. A new study conducted by researchers at the University of Mississippi researchers now finds that consuming EGCG significantly inhibits breast tumor growth in female mice. Keep Reading >>>

New Option For Targeted Breast Cancer Therapy, Study Suggests

Researchers at the Burnham Institute for Medical Research (Burnham) may have found a new option for targeted breast cancer therapy by showing the link between a certain protein and the formation and development of blood vessels that feed breast tumors. Like mortar between bricks in a wall, T-cadherin is a protein that helps cells stick together and collectively form tissues. Cancer cells that loosen their adhesive tissue bonds stop producing T-cadherin, and in tumors, only the blood vessels that supply oxygen and nutrients express this protein. Now, Barbara Ranscht, Ph.D., and Robert Oshima, Ph.D., at Burnham have led a team that developed the first living model to study this protein’s effect on tumor angiogenesis by creating a strain of mice that develops spontaneous mammary gland tumors in the absence of T-cadherin. Keep Reading >>>

Molecular Cause of Breast Cancer Metastasis Discovered

Working with breast tumors, Joan Massague, chairman of the Cancer Biology and Genetics Program at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City, and his colleagues discovered a signaling "relay" that enables the cancer to molecularly "soften" its target tissue — the lung in this case — allowing circulating breast cancer cells to pass through capillary walls and penetrate the lung. "It provides a very nice mechanism for how breast cancer cells specifically get out of the circulation and into the lungs. Nobody knew how they did that before," said Karl Saxe, a scientific program director at the American Cancer Society. Keep Reading >>>

Anemia Triples Risk of Local Recurrence in Breast Cancer Patients

Breast cancer patients who develop anemia during chemotherapy face almost three times the risk of a recurrence in the same area of the affected breast, new research suggests. The Austrian study was a re-analysis of information from a clinical trial that took place in the 1990s. Importantly, the findings also indicated that anemia did alter overall survival or significantly increase the risk of cancer occurring in a patient’s other breast or spreading elsewhere in the body. Anemia, a common side effect of chemotherapy, is a low red blood cell count that can cause fatigue and reduced quality of life. Keep Reading >>>

Breast Cancer More Aggressive In Obese Women, Study Suggests

Body Mass Index (BMI), the measure of a person’s fat based on their height and weight, may be an effective prognostic tool for specific types of breast cancer, according to research from The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center. The study, published in the March 15 issue of Cancer Research, reports that women with locally advanced breast cancer (LABC) and inflammatory breast cancer (IBC) with high BMIs had worse prognosis than women with the disease whose BMIs were in the healthy range. Keep Reading >>>

Breast Cancer In Black Women May Be Connected To Neighborhood Conditions, Study Suggests

Researchers at the University of Chicago are studying possible connections between living in disadvantaged neighborhoods and the development of early onset breast cancer in a path-breaking project led by Sarah Gehlert, Director of the Center for Interdisciplinary Health Disparities Research at the University. Keep Reading >>>

(photo via SXC.hu)

Tags: womens health blog, womens health, women, woman, health, breast cancer research, recent breast cancer news, breast cancer recurrence, obesity, anemia, metastasis, soy protein, green tea, antioxidants, lively women, kristen king

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