A survey of Massachusetts women has found a potential link between the use of household cleaners and air fresheners and breast cancer. The study included interviews with 787 women who had breast cancer and 721 who did not. Researchers asked all the women about pesticide use but found little association.
But when about 400 women in each group were asked about cleaning products, researchers found a potential connection.
In fact, breast-cancer risk was highest among women who reported the most use of cleaning products and air fresheners; it was double the risk for those who reported low use of the products. Most study participants were white and middle-aged and were part of the Cape Cod Breast Cancer and Environment Study, which had financial support from the state of Massachusetts.

The results are published in the journal Environmental Health.

The connection was drawn mostly between mold and mildew cleaners and air fresheners. Surface and oven cleaners were not associated with increased risk. Chemicals of concern include synthetic musks, phthalates, 1,4-dichlorobenzene, terpenes, benzene and styrene and some antimicrobial agents, said Julia Brody, the lead researcher and executive director of the Silent Spring Institute.

Studies of this nature come with an inherent weakness, called recall bias. The researchers acknowledged that women who have cancer and believe in an association with cleaners might be more likely to report high use of them.

That said, the study adds weight to previous animal research showing that the same chemicals cause mammary-gland cancer in animals and disrupt the endocrine system, contributing to tumor growth, Brody said.

Much about the causes of breast cancer remains unknown. Many patients believe in environmental links, but they are notoriously difficult to prove.

“Although there seems to be an association between cleaning products and cancer, that’s a long way from saying, ‘Cleaning products cause breast cancer,’” said Dr. Charles Shapiro, director of breast medical oncology at the Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center.

“I wouldn’t take too much from it,” Shapiro said, noting that the study was relatively small and that it’s impossible to draw definitive conclusions about cause and effect. He also cautioned that what is found in the laboratory in animal models doesn’t necessarily play out among humans.

“The take-home, if any, is if you’re worried about it, try to avoid those products,” he said.

Sandra Steingraber, a New York ecologist, cancer survivor and author of Living Downstream, said she’d advise everyone to stop using chemical cleaners. She uses vinegar and baking soda to clean her house.

“I just see this as such an easy problem compared to a lot of things,” said Steingraber, who is on the faculty at Ithaca College.

The new research, she said, “points to the really vexing problems of trying to make correlations between past exposures and present disease rates.”

Steingraber said: “Clearly, the conversation is shifting now. We can’t just sort of look at the murky evidence on cancer and the environment and sort of set it aside because it’s too inscrutable.”

Breast cancer cells – even the most aggressive type – died after treatments with peach and plum extracts in lab tests at Texas AgriLife Research recently, and scientists say the results are deliciously promising. Not only did the cancerous cells keel over, but the normal cells were not harmed in the process. AgriLife Research scientists say two phenolic compounds are responsible for the cancer cell deaths in the study, which was published in the Journal of Agriculture and Food Chemistry. The phenols are organic compounds that occur in fruits. They are slightly acidic and may be associated with traits such as aroma, taste or color.

“It was a differential effect which is what you’re looking for because in current cancer treatment with chemotherapy, the substance kills all cells, so it is really tough on the body,” said Dr. David Byrne, AgriLife Research plant breeder who studies stone fruit. “Here, there is a five-fold difference in the toxic intensity. You can put it at a level where it will kill the cancer cells – the very aggressive ones – and not the normal ones.”

Byrne and Dr. Luis Cisneros-Zevallos originally studied the antioxidants and phytonutrients in plums and found them to match or exceed the blueberry which had been considered superior to other fruits in those categories.

“The following step was to choose some of these high antioxidant commercial varieties and study their anticancer properties,” Cisneros-Zevallos said. “And we chose breast cancer as the target because it’s one of the cancers with highest incidence among women. So it is of big concern.”

According to the National Cancer Institute, there were 192,370 new cases of breast cancer in females and 1,910 cases in males in 2009. That year, 40,170 women and 440 men died from breast cancer. The World Health Organization reports that breast cancer accounts for 16 percent of the cancer deaths of women globally. Cisneros-Zevallos, an AgriLife Research food scientist, said the team compared normal cells to two types of breast cancer, including the most aggressive type. The cells were treated with an extract from two commercial varieties, the “Rich Lady” peach and the “Black Splendor” plum.

“These extracts killed the cancer cells but not the normal cells,” Cisneros-Zevallos said.

A closer look at the extracts determined that two specific phenolic acid components – chlorogenic and neochlorogenic – were responsible for killing the cancer cells while not affecting the normal cells, Cisneros-Zevallos said.

The two compounds are very common in fruits, the researchers said, but the stone fruits such as plums and peaches have especially high levels.

“So this is very, very attractive from the point of view of being an alternative to typical chemotherapy which kills normal cells along with cancerous ones,” Byrne added.

The team said laboratory tests also confirmed that the compounds prevented cancer from growing in animals given the compounds.

Byrne plans to examine more fully the lines of the varieties that were tested to see how these compounds might be incorporated into his research of breeding plums and peaches. Cisneros-Zevallos will continue testing these extracts and compounds in different types of cancer and conduct further studies of the molecular mechanisms involved.

The work documenting the health benefits of stone fruit has been supported by the Vegetable and Fruit Improvement Center at Texas A&M University, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the California Tree Fruit Agreement.

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/190800.php

HERE’S THE ARTICLE:

Mammograms detect few breast cancers in women younger than age 40 and often lead to more tests and unwarranted anxiety because of false positives, according to a study published Monday in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Reuters reports.

For the study, radiologist Bonnie Yankaskas of the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and colleagues analyzed the medical records of 117,000 women ages 18 through 39 who received their first mammogram in 1995. After one year, no tumors were identified in women younger than age 25. In addition, 12.7 per 1,000 women ages 35 to 39 required additional tests after their mammograms detected a lesion, though very few had cancer, Reuters reports.

“In a theoretical population of 10,000 women aged 35 to 39 years, 1,266 women who are screened will receive further workup, with 16 cancers detected and 1,250 women receiving a false-positive result,” the study found. The study added that before a woman receives a mammogram, “[h]arms need to be considered, including radiation exposure because such exposure is more harmful in young women, the anxiety associated with false-positive findings on the initial examination, and costs associated with additional imaging.”

In an accompanying editorial, Ned Calonge of the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment suggested that women younger than age 40 do not receive mammograms unless they detect a lump in their breast (Fox, Reuters, 5/3).

The age at which women should begin routine breast cancer screenings is a subject of debate among experts, the AP/Miami Herald reports (AP/Miami Herald, 5/3). In November 2009, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force issued guidelines suggesting that most women should begin routine mammograms to screen for breast cancer at age 50, not age 40 as previously recommended. In setting the new guidelines, the experts weighed the benefits of early screening against the risks, including the chance that a mammogram could result in a false positive, prompting unnecessary treatments and stress (Women’s Health Policy Report, 11/17/2009).

For the full report:  http://www.nationalpartnership.org.

A 21-gene test that predicts whether early stage breast cancer patients will benefit from chemotherapy is having a big impact on treatment decisions by patients and doctors alike.

The test caused doctors to change their treatment recommendations in 31.5 percent of cases, while 27 percent of patients changed their treatment decisions. In most such cases, the change by both doctors and patients was to avoid chemotherapy.

The multigene test, Oncotype DX®, is made by Genomic Health Inc. The test examines 21 genes from a tumor sample to determine how active they are. A test score between 0 and 100 predicts how likely the cancer is to recur. For women with low scores, chemotherapy is not recommended.

More than 120,000 breast cancer patients have undergone the test since it became commercially available in 2004. The test is intended for patients who have a type of breast cancer, called estrogen receptor-positive, that has not spread to the lymph nodes. About 100,000 such cases are diagnosed each year.

Doctors said the test increased their confidence in their treatment recommendations in 76 percent of cases. And in 97 percent of cases, doctors said they would order the test again.

After receiving test results, patients reported they were significantly less conflicted about their decision and felt significantly less anxiety about their situation.

The test costs $3,910, and generally is covered by insurance. Researchers said the test might lower overall costs by avoiding the expense of chemotherapy in some patients.

Source: Loyola University Health System
Full Article: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/175635.php

US researchers found that pomegranates contain six natural compounds that may prevent the growth of hormone-dependent breast cancer by blocking the enzyme aromatase, which changes androgen to estrogen. However, experts caution this does not mean people should expect the same results from eating pomegranates, because this was an “in vitro” (test tube) study and results on the lab bench don’t always translate to animals and humans.

The study, which was published in the 1 January issue of Cancer Prevention Research, is the work of Dr Shiuan Chen, director of the Division of Tumor Cell Biology at the Beckman Research Institute of the City of Hope, Duarte, California and colleagues also from City of Hope and the Center for Human Nutrition at the David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California Los Angeles.

For the study, the researchers screened ten compounds in a group known as ellagitannins.

Chen and his team found that the compound with the strongest impact was urolithin B (UB), which appeared to inhibit multiple estrogen-producing mechanisms that fuel the growth of breast cancer.

They also found that UB prevented estrogen-responsive breast cancer cells from multiplying.

Chen told the press that:

“By suppressing the production of estrogen, urolithin B and other phytochemicals found in pomegranates can prevent hormone-responsive breast cancer tumors from growing.”

The other phytochemicals they found were urolithin A (UA), methylated UA, acetylated UB, methylated UB and UB sulfate: these also inhibited aromatase activity but to a lesser extent.

Other studies have found pomegranate juice is high in antioxidants and contains compounds that can control the growth of breast and prostate cancers humans, said the researchers.

Chen said the results of the study suggest that:

“Pomegranate intake may be a viable strategy for preventing breast cancer.”

Full article: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/175411.php

A study conducted at Scott and White Healthcare in Temple, Texas, found that a new drug stopped the growth of breast tumors in mice. This drug is unique in that it works both by stopping the cancer cells from growing and metastasizing to other organs, and by stimulating the immune system to destroy breast cancer cells and keeps them from coming back. This is the only drug that’s able to work in both ways, while all other treatments work in one way or another. And, this research initiative not only involves physicians and biologists working together to bring treatments from the laboratory to the bedside, but a unique third component - agriculturalists.

Researcher Alexzander Asea, Ph.D., the Effie and Wofford Cain Endowed Chair in Clinical Pathology, and division chief of investigative pathology at Scott & White Healthcare and the Texas A&M Health Science Center, said “we found that some of the mice were essentially cured.”

“All anti-cancer drugs broadly fall into two categories; either directly killing cancer cells (often healthy cells as well), or vaccines that help sick patients by boosting the immune system to better fight off cancer. This new drug works both ways, as a vaccine by taking away the cancer cell ability to grow, multiply and spread to distant organs, and by educating the immune system to recognize the breast cancer cells as ‘foreign invaders’ that need to be attacked and destroyed - and to continue that process over time,” Dr. Asea said.

Dr. Asea went on to say “breast cancer cells fly under the radar of the immune system, by turning off the machinery that normally puts recognition structures on the surface of cancer cells which the immune system uses to recognize and destroy them. To overcome this problem, this injectable drug turns on this machinery within the cancer cells allowing the immune system to recognize the cancer cells and kill them. The unique thing is that the revved-up immune cells will continue patrolling for any hidden cancer cells months and years after the last cancer cells have been killed,” Dr. Asea said.

“Collaborating with the agricultural community on this research also allows us to use a special delivery mechanism of the drug that doesn’t cause the negative side effects you see with more traditional treatments like chemotherapeutic agents,” explained Dr. Asea.

Dr. Asea said only about one year of additional work is required before Phase I clinical trials can begin in women with metastatic breast cancer at Scott & White Hospital. “However, this stage requires a significant amount of funding. We’re currently looking at various sources including federal, state and private sources to get this promising drug to the patients who need it.”

Source:
Katherine Voss
Scott & White Healthcare

Scientists now know that loneliness causes increased breast cancer risk in rats. Whether that translates into loneliness causes breast cancer in humans is yet to be shown. It might be hard to find women willing to be locked up and isolated from the world in order to duplicate the rodent study. Researchers believe isolation causes stress which raises levels of a hormone that helps to trigger tumour growth. Rats who were kept in solitude were three times more likely than others to go on to develop the cancer. The tumours the rodents developed were also larger and more deadly. More than 45,000 women develop the devastating disease every year in Britain.

Reducing feelings of loneliness could potentially cut the numbers affected, the team behind the latest study believes.

Their findings show that levels of a stress hormone called corticosterone increased the rats who were kept in isolation.

The researchers believe that this hormone affects how cells grow, creating tumours.

The study also found that levels of the chemical stayed higher for longer in isolated rats exposed to stressful situations, such as smelling the odour of fox, than in rodents who lived together, the researchers found.

“This study offers insight into how the social world gets under the skin,” said Gretchen Hermes, from Yale University, who led the study.

Martha McClintock, from the University of Chicago and one of the co-authors of the study, added: “We need to use these findings to identify potential targets for intervention to reduce cancer and its psychological and social risk factors.

“In order to do that, we need to look at the problem from a variety of perspectives, including examining the sources of stress in neighbourhoods as well as the biological aspects of cancer development.”

However, cancer charities said that previous studies in humans did not suggest that there was a link between breast cancer and stress.

Ed Yong, from Cancer Research UK, said: “Overall, research in humans does not suggest there is a direct link between stress and breast cancer.

“But it’s possible that stressful situations could indirectly affect the risk of cancer by making people more likely to take up unhealthy behaviours that increase their risk, such as overeating, heavy drinking, or smoking.”

Meg Macarthur, from Breakthrough Breast Cancer, said: “This extremely early stage research is based on a sample of 40 rats – 20 of which were isolated to identify the impact of stress on developing breast cancer.

“This very small study suggests that stress due to isolation might increase the number of breast cancer tumours; however, these findings cannot be directly translated to humans.”

The findings were published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/6751766/Loneliness-can-increase-risk-of-breast-cancer.html

Dried mushrooms had a slightly less protective effect, reducing the risk by around half.

The study, carried out in China, also showed women who combined a mushroom diet with regular consumption of green tea saw an even greater benefit.

The risk among women in this group was reduced by almost 90 per cent.

Researchers say the latest findings, published in the International Journal of Cancer, do not prove eating mushrooms will stop cancer and more studies are needed to confirm the results.

But laboratory tests on animals do show the fungi have anti-tumour properties and can stimulate the immune system’s defences.

Some evidence suggests mushrooms act in a similar way to breast cancer drugs called aromatose inhibitors, which blocks the body’s production of the hormone oestrogen, which can encourage the development of cancer.

Last month, scientists in California began a trial to see if taking mushroom extract twice a day for a month helps breast cancer survivors remain free of the disease.

Around 40,000 women a year in Britain are diagnosed with breast cancer. The disease affects one in nine women at some point in their lives and diet is thought to be a key factor.

Rates of the disease in China are four to five tines lower than in some western countries.

The new study, by a team at the University of Western Australia in Perth, looked at more than 2,000 Chinese women.

Approximately half the women had suffered breast cancer.

After taking account of other factors that could have contributed to cancer, such as being overweight, lack of exercise and smoking, scientists analysed eating habits and came up with the finding on mushrooms.

A separate study of 52,700 men and women, published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, found that a vegetarian diet may help to protect against cancer

Researchers at the University of Oxford divided people aged 20 to 89 into meat-eaters, fish-eaters, vegetarians and vegans and found a lower rate of cancer among fish-eaters and vegetarians compared with meat-eaters.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/5000582/Eating-mushrooms-daily-may-cut-breast-cancer-risk-by-two-thirds.html

Nov 16, 2009 (5:18p CST)
By STEPHANIE NANO and MARILYNN MARCHIONE  (Associated Press Writers)

NEW YORK -  Most women don’t need a mammogram in their 40s and should get one every two years starting at 50, a government task force said Monday. It’s a major reversal that conflicts with the American Cancer Society’s long-standing position.

Also, the task force said breast self-exams do no good and women shouldn’t be taught to do them.

For most of the past two decades, the cancer society has been recommending annual mammograms beginning at 40.

But the government panel of doctors and scientists concluded that getting screened for breast cancer so early and so often leads to too many false alarms and unneeded biopsies without substantially improving women’s odds of survival.

“The benefits are less and the harms are greater when screening starts in the 40s,” said Dr. Diana Petitti, vice chair of the panel.

The new guidelines were issued by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, whose stance influences coverage of screening tests by Medicare and many insurance companies.

But Susan Pisano, a spokeswoman for America’s Health Insurance Plans, an industry group, said insurance coverage isn’t likely to change because of the new guidelines. No changes are planned in Medicare coverage either, said Dori Salcido, spokeswoman for the Health and Human Services department.

Experts expect the task force revisions to be hotly debated, and to cause confusion for women and their doctors.

“Our concern is that as a result of that confusion, women may elect not to get screened at all. And that, to me, would be a serious problem,” said Dr. Len Lichtenfeld, the cancer society’s deputy chief medical officer.

The guidelines are for the general population, not those at high risk of breast cancer because of family history or gene mutations that would justify having mammograms sooner or more often.

The new advice says:

_Most women in their 40s should not routinely get mammograms.

_Women 50 to 74 should get a mammogram every other year until they turn 75, after which the risks and benefits are unknown. (The task force’s previous guidelines had no upper limit and called for exams every year or two.)

_The value of breast exams by doctors is unknown. And breast self-exams are of no value.

Medical groups such as the cancer society have been backing off promoting breast self-exams in recent years because of scant evidence of their effectiveness. Decades ago, the practice was so heavily promoted that organizations distributed cards that could be hung in the shower demonstrating the circular motion women should use to feel for lumps in their breasts.

The guidelines and research supporting them were released Monday and are being published in Tuesday’s issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine.

The new advice was sharply challenged by the cancer society.

“This is one screening test I recommend unequivocally, and would recommend to any woman 40 and over,” the society’s chief medical officer, Dr. Otis Brawley, said in a statement.

The task force advice is based on its conclusion that screening 1,300 women in their 50s to save one life is worth it, but that screening 1,900 women in their 40s to save a life is not, Brawley wrote.

That stance “is essentially telling women that mammography at age 40 to 49 saves lives, just not enough of them,” he said. The cancer society feels the benefits outweigh the harms for women in both groups.

International guidelines also call for screening to start at age 50; the World Health Organization recommends the test every two years, Britain says every three years.

Breast cancer is the most common cancer and the second leading cause of cancer deaths in American women. More than 192,000 new cases and 40,000 deaths from the disease are expected in the U.S. this year.

Mammograms can find cancer early, and two-thirds of women over 40 report having had the test in the previous two years. But how much they cut the risk of dying of the disease, and at what cost in terms of unneeded biopsies, expense and worry, have been debated.

In most women, tumors are slow-growing, and that likelihood increases with age. So there is little risk by extending the time between mammograms, some researchers say. Even for the minority of women with aggressive, fast-growing tumors, annual screening will make little difference in survival odds.

The new guidelines balance these risks and benefits, scientists say.

The probability of dying of breast cancer after age 40 is 3 percent, they calculate. Getting a mammogram every other year from ages 50 to 69 lowers that risk by about 16 percent.

“It’s an average of five lives saved per thousand women screened,” said Georgetown University researcher Dr. Jeanne Mandelblatt.

Starting at age 40 would prevent one additional death but also lead to 470 false alarms for every 1,000 women screened. Continuing mammograms through age 79 prevents three additional deaths but raises the number of women treated for breast cancers that would not threaten their lives.

“You save more lives because breast cancer is more common, but you diagnose tumors in women who were destined to die of something else. The overdiagnosis increases in older women,” Mandelblatt said.

She led six teams around the world who used federal data on cancer and mammography to develop mathematical models of what would happen if women were screened at different ages and time intervals. Their conclusions helped shape the new guidelines.

Several medical groups say they are sticking to their guidelines that call for routine screening starting at 40.

“Screening isn’t perfect. But it’s the best thing we have. And it works,” said Dr. Carol Lee, a spokeswoman for the American College of Radiology. She suggested that cutting health care costs may have played a role in the decision, but Petitti said the task force does not consider cost or insurance in its review.

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists also has qualms. The organization’s Dr. Hal Lawrence said there is still significant benefit to women in their 40s, adding: “We think that women deserve that benefit.”

But Dr. Amy Abernethy of the Duke Comprehensive Cancer Center agreed with the task force’s changes.

“Overall, I think it really took courage for them to do this,” she said. “It does ask us as doctors to change what we do and how we communicate with patients. That’s no small undertaking.”

Abernethy, who is 41, said she got her first mammogram the day after her 40th birthday, even though she wasn’t convinced it was needed. Now she doesn’t plan to have another mammogram until she is 50.

Barbara Brenner, executive director of the San Francisco-based Breast Cancer Action, said the group was “thrilled” with the revisions. The advocacy group doesn’t support screening before menopause, and will be changing its suggested interval from yearly to every two years, she said.

Mammograms, like all medical interventions, have risks and benefits, she said.

“Women are entitled to know what they are and to make their best decisions,” she said. “These guidelines will help that conversation.”

___

Medical Writer Marilynn Marchione reported from Milwaukee.