A while back a study was published in the journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention that showed an association between breast cancer risk and a western style diet in Asian women. Asian women have traditionally had lower rates of breast cancer, but their rates have been increasing. This study revealed two overall diet patterns – one consisting of a high amount of meat and candy, dessert, bread and milk termed ‘meat-sweet’. The other has mostly vegetables, soy-based products and freshwater fish and is called ‘vegetable-soy’. The researchers found that the ‘meat-sweet’ pattern was significantly associated with increased risk of estrogen-receptor-positive (ER+) breast cancer among overweight postmenopausal women.

A new gene was found to be associated with breast cancer by researchers at the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center. It is called FOXP3 and is located on the X chromosome – one of only 2 genes linked to cancer so far found there. In mice it was discovered that when the FOXP3 gene is silenced 90% of the them spontaneously developed cancerous tumors. In humans it was found that around 80% of the cancer tissues they studied didn’t express FOXP3 at all. They also discovered that FOXP3 represses the HER-2/ErbB2 oncogene which is associated with a more aggressive form of breast cancer.

The President of the International Menopause Society suggests that the connection between breast cancer incidence and use of hormone therapy needs to be looked at more closely in Breast cancer and hormone therapy — A looking-glass mirror?. He concludes with “breast-wise, in women younger than 60, HT (particularly estrogen-alone) is safe”.

In the Journal of the National Cancer Institute there was a study in July from the The Netherlands showing that “breast cancer detection may increase when mammograms are reviewed by both a radiologist and a mammographic technologist“. Specifically they found that “breast cancer detection rate increased 6.8% when the mammograms were read by two technologists and two radiologists”.