Etiology and Prevention: Finding the Underlying Causes
Overview: Although our foundation of knowledge for the basic science aspects of breast cancer has expanded greatly over the past decade, there still remains a gap in our strategies for largescale prevention due to uncertainties over the underlying causes of the disease and their relative importance. There is an extensive list of lifestyle factors associated with increased and decreased risk for breast cancer. However, the relative importance of diet, exercise, family history, pregnancy, alcohol, hormone replacement therapy, and other factors remains controversial. The CBCRP’s Special Research Initiatives (SRI) seeks to increase knowledge of and create solutions to the environmental causes of breast cancer. This $18 million effort will identify and support research strategies that increase knowledge about and create solutions to both the environmental causes of breast cancer and the unequal burden of the disease. The SRI will support coordinated statewide efforts to explore innovative ideas and new theories; leverage California's unique and diverse geographic, population, and research resources; and undertake critical studies that significantly move these fields forward.
The CBCRP funded two new grants in 2007 to advance our Etiology & Prevention priority issue.
Etiology & Prevention Portfolio Summary:
A CRC-Full Research award entitled Breast Cancer Risks in California Nail Salon Workers focuses on immigrant women, specifically Vietnamese nail salon workers, who make up over 80% of nail salon workers in California. In their CBCRP funded pilot project, Linda Okahara with Asian Health Services and Peggy Reynolds of the Northern California Cancer Center found that many nail salon workers are concerned about the chemicals they are exposed to and are experiencing health problems associated with high levels of exposure to solvents. Using data from the California Cancer Registry, the team will explore: (1) whether nail salon workers have higher breast cancer rates than the general population; and (2) whether Vietnamese nail salon workers have a higher incidence of breast cancer than the general Vietnamese population. The second part of this study will document whether hydrocarbon solvents, especially benzene and toluene, found in nail salons exceed the health-based standards. Eighty nail salon workers will wear passive air monitors for two to three days to collect data on hydrocarbons. The study has important implications, because the nail salon industry is one of the fastest growing in the nation.
Lifestyle factors related to breast cancer risk, especially among high-risk overweight adolescents is another important area of research that has received little attention. In adults, obesity, physical inactivity, insulin resistance, and visceral fat have all been linked to increased breast cancer risk; however very little is known about this relationship during adolescence. Overweight Latina adolescents are often physically inactive, insulin resistant, and have high amounts of visceral fat (i.e., the fat around the abdominal organs). They may also start their menstrual cycles early in life and have an increased frequency of ovulatory cycles, which have been widely linked with increased breast cancer. Jaimie Davis at University of Southern California proposes a randomized controlled trial, entitled Circuit Training and Breast Cancer Biomarkers in Adolescents to determine whether a 16-week circuit training program can potentially impact breast cancer risk in adolescent girls through its effects on hormone profiles, menarche, ovulatory cycles, insulin sensitivity, adiposity, and therefore breast cancer risk. Forty Latina girls (ages 14 to 18, who are either overweight or at risk of being overweight) will be randomly assigned to either a 16-week circuit training program group, or to the control group (receiving 4 weeks of intensive circuit training at the end of the intervention). This study has important implications for ethnic minority communities that are disproportionately overweight and susceptible to increased breast cancer risk.
Etiology & Prevention Grants Funded in 2007:
Circuit Training to Lower Breast Cancer Risk in Latina Teens
Jaimie Davis, Ph.D.
University of Southern California
Award type: IDEA
$244,500
Breast Cancer Risks in California Nail Salon Workers
Peggy Reynolds, Ph.D.
Northern California Cancer Center
Linda Okahara
Asian Health Services
Award Type: CRC–Full Research
$349,303 (NCCC) / $317,610 (AHS)
