Breast cancer and early adulthood

Over the past several decades, the incidence of early-onset cancers, often defined as cancers diagnosed in adults <50 years of age, in the breast, colorectum, endometrium, oesophagus, extrahepatic bile duct, gallbladder, head and neck, kidney, liver, bone marrow, pancreas, prostate, stomach and thyroid has increased in multiple countries. Increased use of screening programmes has contributed to this phenomenon to a certain extent, although a genuine increase in the incidence of early-onset forms of several cancer types also seems to have emerged...

Individuals with genetic disease face unique challenges related to navigating dating relationships. While previous studies have explored the impact of hereditary breast and ovarian cancer syndrome on dating, research investigating psychosocial implications for young adults with early-onset multi-organ tumor predisposition syndromes such as von Hippel-Lindau disease (VHL) is scarce. This study assessed young adults' attitudes towards dating and decisions related to disclosing a diagnosis of VHL to a dating partner...

PURPOSE: To compare sleep disturbance from 5 years pre- to 5 years post-diagnosis between breast cancer survivors (BCS) and women without cancer over the same period and to identify BCS subgroups exhibiting different sleep trajectories. METHODS: Analyses included data from 152 BCS and 2163 controls from 20 years of follow-up in the longitudinal Study of Women's Health Across the Nation (SWAN), a multi-racial/ethnic cohort study. SWAN participants were assessed approximately annually from 1995 to 2015 using a standardized protocol...

BACKGROUND: There is limited comprehensive evidence on the potential association between early menarche and subsequent health outcomes. AIM: To evaluate the existing evidence for the association of early menarche with later health outcomes and assess the strength and validity of the evidence for these associations. DESIGN: Umbrella review. METHODS: We searched PubMed, Web of Science, Embase, CINAHL, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, and Google Scholar, and manually screened retrieved references to find systematic reviews and meta-analyses from inception to July 2021...

Excess body weight has been established as a risk factor for at least twelve cancer sites, though questions remain as to the timing of associations for adiposity and cancer risk throughout the life course. We conducted a narrative review summarizing existing evidence to provide insights into the complex timing relationship between adiposity and risk of seven common obesity-related cancers. We considered five types of studies, including traditional epidemiologic studies examining adiposity at different time points, studies examining weight gain in specific life phases, studies examining weight loss over a period including from bariatric surgery, life course trajectory analysis, and Mendelian randomization studies...

Breast cancer is a common occurrence in women, and it is also associated with lymphedema. In this case, the patient reported breast cancer-related lymphedema after a radical mastectomy with axillary lymph node dissection in the left breast; after her treatment, she experienced this condition for three months. Following the assessment, it was determined that the lymphedema was in stage 2 as a result of the delay. As the measurements increased, CDT was recommended for the treatment. This study provides evidence that early assessment and regular self-assessment for signs can lead to early resolution...

Given the global secular declining trends of the age at puberty and its relevant mechanisms, as illustrated in the first part of this series, the present part will discuss the public health implications of early puberty and potential clinical and public health measures. Although the major effect of earlier maturation impacts adolescents' mental health and likelihood of engaging in risky behaviors, there are also effects in adulthood on cardiometabolic health, especially type 2 diabetes, and an increased risk of certain cancers, especially hormone-related cancers such as breast cancer...

Infertility is a growing public health problem. Consumption of antioxidant bioactive food compounds (BFCs) that include micronutrients and non-nutrients has been highlighted as a potential strategy to protect against oxidative and inflammatory damage in the male reproductive system induced by obesity, alcohol, and toxicants and, thus, improve spermatogenesis and the fertility parameters. Paternal consumption of such dietary compounds could not only benefit the fathers but their offspring as well. Studies in the new field of paternal origins of health and disease show that paternal malnutrition can alter sperm epigenome, and this can alter fetal development and program an increased risk of metabolic diseases and breast cancer in adulthood...

PURPOSE OF REVIEW: Environmental exposures during early stages of life may be particularly relevant for cancer etiology because of the rapid hormonal and tissue changes that occur during puberty and, in women, through first birth. We review evidence from the past five years on environmental exposures during childhood/adolescence through first birth and the risk of breast and other cancers during adulthood. RECENT FINDINGS: The studies of breast cancer (n=14) reported associations for childhood/adolescent environmental tobacco smoke (ETS), smoking initiation, pesticides, hair dye use, and living on a road with high traffic...

BACKGROUND: Body mass index (BMI) and cardiometabolic comorbidities such as cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes have been studied as negative prognostic factors in cancer survival, but possible dependencies in the mechanisms underlying these associations remain largely unexplored. We analysed these associations in colorectal and breast cancer patients. METHODS: Based on repeated BMI assessments of cancer-free participants from four European countries in the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and nutrition (EPIC) study, individual BMI-trajectories reflecting predicted mean BMI between ages 20 to 50 years were estimated using a growth curve model...

BACKGROUND: High phytoestrogen intake during adolescence is associated with a reduced risk of breast cancer. Breast density (BD) is a strong predictor of breast cancer and can be considered an early marker. We aim to assess the association between the mean habitual intake of isoflavones, lignans, and total phytoestrogens intake during puberty until 2 years after menarche onset and absolute fibroglandular volume (AFGV) and percentage of fibroglandular volume (%FGV) in Hispanic girls at the end of puberty...

PURPOSE: To assess the association between higher-than-normal BMI and incidence of premenopausal ovarian and breast cancers. METHODS: This prospective cohort study included 461,646 women registered in the Danish Medical Birth Registry with self-reported early adulthood BMI ≥18.5 kg/m2 , without a history of cancer. We used Cox proportional hazards regression models to estimate the hazard ratios (HRs) with 95% confidence intervals (95% CIs) of premenopausal epithelial ovarian cancer, breast cancer, estrogen receptor positive and negative, HER2 positive and negative breast cancers according to BMI...

Studies suggest that adiposity in childhood may reduce the risk of breast cancer in later life. The biological mechanism underlying this effect is unclear but is likely to be independent of body size in adulthood. Using a Mendelian randomization framework, we investigate 18 hypothesised mediators of the protective effect of childhood adiposity on later-life breast cancer, including hormonal, reproductive, physical, and glycaemic traits. Our results indicate that, while most of the hypothesised mediators are affected by childhood adiposity, only IGF-1 (OR: 1...

Dairy consumption in adulthood has been demonstrated to influence cancer risk. Although childhood and adolescence represent critical periods of rapid growth, the relationship between milk intake in early life and later cancer risk is unclear. Thus, we examined this relationship by conducting a meta-analysis of the observational studies. PubMed and Embase were searched for relevant articles that were published throughout December 2021. The summary relative risk (RR) and 95% confidence interval (CI) were estimated using the DerSimonian-Laird random-effects model...

Prior to the recommended age for population-based breast cancer screening by mammography, which ranges from 40-50 years depending on guidelines, the main way to identify higher risk women for earlier breast cancer (BC) screening to improve outcomes and discuss targeted chemoprevention is through specific clinical guidelines which are largely based on family history of breast cancer and known mutations in breast cancer susceptibility genes. The annual percent change (APC) in early-onset BC continues to rise, with the higher early-onset cancer burden and mortality continuing to be seen in non-Hispanic black (NHB) women compared to non-Hispanic white (NHW) women...

STUDY QUESTION: Are menstrual cycle characteristics throughout the reproductive lifespan associated with cancer risk? SUMMARY ANSWER: Irregular and long menstrual cycles throughout the reproductive lifespan were associated with increased risk of total invasive cancer, especially obesity-related cancers. WHAT IS KNOWN ALREADY: Long and irregular menstrual cycles have been associated with lower risk of pre-menopausal breast cancer and higher risk of endometrial cancer, but associations with other malignancies are less clear...

Early menarche is associated with adverse health outcomes during adolescence as well as breast and other reproductive cancers later in adulthood. However, the causes of early menarche and the pathways through which they operate are not fully understood. Though maternal thyroid function during pregnancy affects child growth, and rapid childhood growth is associated with a decreased age at menarche, the relationship between prenatal maternal thyroid function and daughters' age at menarche has not been examined...

BACKGROUND: Here, we explore the association between excess weight during early to mid-adulthood and survival in patients diagnosed with breast and colorectal cancer, using a pooled analysis of five cohort studies and study participants from 11 countries. METHODS: Participant-level body mass index (BMI) trajectories were estimated by fitting a growth curve model using over 2 million repeated BMI measurements from close to 600,000 cohort participants. Cumulative measures of excess weight were derived...

BACKGROUND: Breast cancer (BC) is the most prevalent cancer in women and the leading cause of women's cancer-related deaths and morbidity worldwide. In Rwanda, BC incidence is increasing with an unacceptably high mortality rate in premenopausal women. OBJECTIVES: The purpose was to identify modifiable BC risk factors and assess associations between common breast cancer risks factors and molecular subtypes in premenopausal women in Rwanda. METHODS: This was a case-control study...

Recent evidence suggests that complex diseases can result from early life exposure to environmental toxicants. Polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs), and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) are persistent organic pollutants (POPs) and remain a continuing risk to human health despite being banned from production. Developmental BPA exposure mediated-adult onset of liver cancer via epigenetic reprogramming mechanisms has been identified. Here, we investigated whether the gut microbiome and liver can be persistently reprogrammed following neonatal exposure to POPs, and the associations between microbial biomarkers and disease-prone changes in the hepatic transcriptome in adulthood, compared with BPA...