Health & Medicine - Posted by Karen Peart-Yale on Tuesday, June 1, 2010 15:08 - 1 Comment 
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(1 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5) Loading ...BPA in plastics raises breast cancer risk
Prenatal exposure to BPA, DES, and similar compounds that are common in plastics have been shown to increase the risk of breast cancer in offspring. "These results show that all estrogens, even weak ones can alter the development of the breast and place our children at risk," says Hugh Taylor. (Credit: iStockphoto)
YALE (US)—Exposure in the womb to chemicals common in plastics, including BPA, can increase an offspring’s risk of breast cancer, new research shows.
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The text of this article by Futurity is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivatives License.
Bisphenol-A (BPA) and diethylstilbestrol (DES), and similar compounds are known as endocrine-disrupting chemicals, which are substances in the environment that interfere with the proper functioning of hormones, resulting in adverse developmental, reproductive, neurological, and immune effects in both humans and wildlife.
BPA is a weak estrogen and DES is a strong estrogen, but both have a profound effect on gene expression in the breast throughout life, says Hugh Taylor, professor of obstetrics, gynecology, and reproductive sciences at Yale University.
Taylor and his colleagues treated pregnant mice with BPA or DES and then studied the adult offspring. Mammary glands in these offspring were found to produce higher levels of EZH2, a protein that controls the expression of all genes. Higher EZH2 levels are associated with an increased risk of breast cancer in humans.
The team demonstrated a mechanism by which endocrine-disrupting chemicals regulate developmental programming in the breast. Details appear in the current issue of Hormones and Cancer.
“These results show that all estrogens, even weak ones, can alter the development of the breast and place our children at risk,” says Taylor. “We many not be able to see the final effects of these exposures until our children reach the age when breast cancers start to appear.”
“The data, coupled with our data on DES and BPA effects on the uterus, clearly demonstrate a lasting effect of prenatal exposure to estrogens on the breast and uterus,” Taylor adds.
“This study generates important safety concerns about exposures to environmental endocrine disruptors such as BPA and suggests a potential need to monitor women exposed to these chemicals for the development of breast lesions as adults.”
More news from Yale University: http://opa.yale.edu/
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1 Comment
Tertiary
Treated how?
Did they inject BPA, so that it was free to circulate in the blood unmetabolized, or was exposure oral?
This is an incredibly important distinction to take into consideration when discussing the implications that this research has on human health.