New research suggests that what a woman eats during pregnancy may offer her offspring protection against breast cancer.
Researchers at Boston University studied female rats whose mothers were given different amounts of choline, a nutrient found in eggs, during pregnancy. The rats were given either no choline, normal amounts of choline, or extra choline during pregnancy, and, after birth, their female offspring were treated with a chemical that causes breast cancer. Whilst all of the female offspring went on to develop breast cancer, the results showed that offspring of the rats that had received extra choline during pregnancy had slow growing tumors whereas the offspring of rats that consumed no choline during pregnancy had fast growing tumors.
Furthermore, multiple genetic and molecular changes detected in the tumors were found to correlate with survival outcomes in humans. For example, the slow growing tumors in the offspring of rats fed extra choline had a genetic pattern similar to those seen in breast cancers of women who are considered to have a good prognosis, whereas the genetic changes that occurred in the fast growing tumors were similar to those seen in women with very aggressive forms of breast cancer that are associated with a poor prognosis.
The authors concluded: “Our results suggest a role for adequate maternal choline nutrition during pregnancy in prevention/alleviation of breast cancer in daughters.”
Gerald Weissmann, M.D., Editor-in-Chief of The FASEB Journal, in which the research was published, said: “The emerging science of epigenetics has yielded a breakthrough. For the first time, we’ve learned that we might be able to prevent breast cancer as early as a mother’s pregnancy.”
Kovacheva VP, Davison JM, Mellott TJ, et al. Raising gestational choline intake alters gene expression in DMBA-evoked mammary tumors and prolongs survival. FASEB J. First published on December 1, 2008. doi:10.1096/fj.08-122168
News release: Eating eggs when pregnant affects breast cancer in offspring. Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology. December 1st 2008.
