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Breast cancer: what does the microbiome have to do with it?

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Bacteria also appear to play a role in breast cancer. Both those who live in the intestine and those who “live” in the mammary glands. And a diet rich in foods that fuel inflammation, such as fats, seem to alter their balance, indirectly promoting disease. That’s why in this week’s Breast Health newsletter (here the link to sign up for free) we talk about the microbiome.

The term microbiome has become very popular in recent years. With this word we mean the set of all the symbiotic microorganisms (mostly bacteria) of our body. The best known are certainly those of the digestive tract: the so-called intestinal flora.

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The breast also has its own microbiome

That the breast also had its own microbiome is instead a relatively recent discovery and the importance it has for health is not yet clear. Already in 2018, US researchers from the Wake Forest School of Medicine in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, observed that its composition – that is, the presence and quantity of certain strains compared to others – changes according to the diet.

Since this first discovery, those same researchers have conducted other experiments: the results are now published in Cancer Research, a scientific journal of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR), and suggest that the change in the breast and gut microbiome following a high-fat diet may also increase the risk of cancer.

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If the bacteria change, the risk of cancer changes

Scientists have conducted studies on both mice (modified to be more predisposed to developing breast cancers) and on patients waiting for surgery. Let’s start with animal models. Two groups of mice were fed differently: on a high-fat or low-fat diet. The former developed more tumors than the latter – tumors that also grew faster and were therefore larger. The most interesting part of the study, however, is another: the researchers swapped the gut microbiomes of the two groups (through a procedure called fecal transplant): when mice fed a low-fat diet received the bacteria ‘other group, the incidence of breast cancers increased.

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“Simply transferring the gut bacteria to increase the risk of breast cancer in our animal models,” said study coordinator Katherine L. Cook: “There is still a lot we don’t know, but these results support the existence of a link between microbiome and breast health “.

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Fish oil for the breast microbiome

We now come to the study of women who had received a diagnosis of breast cancer. They too were divided into two groups: one group took a fish oil supplement – which has anti-inflammatory action and “nourishes” the bacterial flora – for 2-4 weeks, and the other group took a placebo. Cook and colleagues then analyzed the microbiome of both cancerous and healthy breast tissue taken during surgery, noting that taking fish oil, albeit for such a short period of time, had altered the bacterial populations. In particular, Lactobacilli had increased, a strain that – in vitro – seems to be able to slow down the growth of breast cancer.

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“This, of course, does not mean that with a healthy diet alone, or with a probiotic or a supplement, it is possible to cure the disease and avoid the danger of developing it, but in reading there are now many data that reinforce the important, preventive role and protective of the diet “, comments Debora Guerra, Nutritionist Biologist at the Romagnolo Institute for the Study of Tumors – IRST in Meldola.

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Balance and biodiversity

However, the world of the microbiome is still largely unknown. “We know – continues Guerra – that on the basis of what we eat we can select the bacterial populations of the intestine and we are able to increase the strains that are more related to a good or improving health condition”. But it is not only important to have many “good” bacteria, such as lactobacilli and bifids: it also counts that there is biodiversity and balance. “Microbiomes are like cities – explains the expert – if there are a thousand bars and a single pharmacy cannot work well. We also know that a healthy microbiome affects the activity of the immune system: if we eat badly, the immune system continues to be stressed and it is as if it is training the wrong way. And in fact many studies are being carried out in the field of immuno-oncology. reaction. How long does it take to reorganize the intestinal microbiome? A week, a month? And how long does it take to lose balance? “.

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In short, we are still in the research phase and unfortunately still far from being able to apply this knowledge to cancer patients, if not within experimental studies. The goal is to understand how to use probiotics and prebiotics better and better. “The message – concludes Guerra – is however clear: the often underestimated diet can be a precious support both for primary prevention, both to reduce the risk of relapses and to alleviate the side effects of therapies”.

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