What is it about?
After menopause, weight gain increases the risk of breast cancer. This is because adipose tissue secrete factors especially estrogens that stimulate normal breast cells to proliferate and potentially promote tumor development. Adipose tissue inflammation, a common feature in obese women, is considered a major cause for the increased local estrogen production. It is therefore important for the medical and pharmaceutical field to identify factors that can suppress this process. So far, ghrelin has been the only recognized factor that acts as a suppressor of the estrogen synthesis in adipose tissue. In this study, we demonstrated that IL-10, a key factor controlling local inflammation, also reduces the production of estrogens locally in breast tissue.
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Why is it important?
These findings may bring new insights into the mechanisms involved in the development of postmenopausal breast cancer as well as novel approaches for prevention.
Perspectives
This results could open a broad new field for breast cancer prevention. I believe this article will boost far more the idea of having a healthy diet and body weight can really prevent breast cancer. We hope researchers get interested in knowing what are the breaks controlling hormone synthesis in fat tissue and what are the factors or conditions affecting these after menopause. New players, gut microbiota, should be also taken into the account when designing prevention strategies.
Gabriela Martínez
University of Turku
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: IL-10 suppresses TNF-α-induced expression of human aromatase gene in mammary adipose tissue, The FASEB Journal, June 2018, Federation of American Societies For Experimental Biology (FASEB),
DOI: 10.1096/fj.201700938rrr.
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