The celebration of the European Week of Breastfeeding has just begun in Spain, and yesterday an article from the networks began to be shared Huffington Post that It seems that breastfeeding increases the risk of breast cancer.
A headline who makes a statement that is currently not such (the association between breast cancer and breastfeeding) and a bad translation within the text It is leading to creating uncertainty in breastfeeding mothers and in those who are assessing whether or not to breastfeed their babies. He is even giving wings to those relatives who pressure women to leave their breasts because they consider their children to be older: "Leave him now, Maria ... the child is very old and I just read that you have a higher risk of breast cancer" .
To try to remove some fear and see what is the reality about the study mentioned, we answer this question today: Do breasts really eat themselves after breastfeeding (and this influences breast cancer)?
Study Data
The study in question was published last month in the magazine Developmental Cell, and of him we have the summary (more than enough) and the declarations of one of the investigators. The summary does not talk about cancer at any time. In fact, the investigation is not assessing the risk of breast cancer at any time as if to say that with breastfeeding the risk is greater or lesser, but that you are trying to understand how a protein that is related to cancer works and that is associated with functions related to pregnancy and breastfeeding.
With the research they have managed to explain why when a woman stops breastfeeding the logical involution of breast structures they do not produce inflammation, discomfort or pain, which is what is supposed to happen when some cells quickly remove physical areas of the same body.
Do the breasts eat themselves after breastfeeding?
It is a bit aggressive way of saying it, but it could be summarized that yes, when breastfeeding ends, areas of the mammary glands are eliminated quickly, but not because it is something negative, but quite the opposite, to prevent them from affecting any way the chest and the woman can breastfeed again without problems In case of a new pregnancy.
What happens at the end of breastfeeding is that in the breast all the structures that were created during pregnancy are left "dying" to produce milk and feed the baby. The structures and milk that the baby or child no longer draws.
If the body does not react against all these leftovers, which are running out of function or life, the risk to women's health would be evident, so act quickly to eliminate them.
What was known to date is that cells capable of phagocytizing (swallowing, swallowing, eating) what is no longer needed in the body, produce inflammation. More dead cells, more inflammation, more inflammation, more damage, more damage, less chance of a subsequent breastfeeding and more risk of cancer.
Well, here lies the great discovery of the research: they have seen that in the chest of women there are a protein called Rac1 which has the function of helping in the pregnancy to create the breast tissue and to secrete the milk during breastfeeding, that at the moment when you stop breastfeeding changes function and is able to remove the structures that he created, avoiding that this function is in the hands of the phagocytes of the immune system, thus avoiding an inflammatory reaction that could be very dangerous, so much so that it could jeopardize a subsequent lactation (and increase the risk of cancer).
I explain it another way: in a city there are dozens of places for parties. There is a company that organizes parties and does it wonderfully, and a company that is responsible for collecting everything after the party. These also do very well, but sometimes, when they have too much work, they try to do it so fast that even if they try to leave it clean, they destroy many things.
However, there is a place where there are always huge parties, but then the venue is great. Many people wonder how it is possible for that company to work so well and quickly in that place, when it does so badly in others if the work is a lot. As it has been discovered that what happens in that place is that when the cleaning company appears through the door, the organizers of the party just let them pass ... they are the ones who organize it, the ones who pick up quickly so that when the cleaning company arrives, the work is very advanced and then they can do their job without causing damage.
Breastfeeding is a party that leaves many remains, so the same proteins that prepare the breast for breastfeeding, are responsible for collecting everything so that when the phagocytes arrive, which are greatly exaggerated doing their job, there is the least possible damage.
The doctor Nasreen Akhtar, from the Department of Oncology and Metabolism of the University of Sheffield, author of the study, explains it in Medicine Online:
When doing the work themselves, the epithelia of the breast limit both the number and the time of infiltration of the immune phagocytes, which prevents the tissue from being damaged (...) Without Rac1, dead cells and milk floods of the Interconnected breast ducts cause them to swell and trigger chronic inflammation. Then, the swollen ducts fail in the regeneration and production of milk in a future pregnancy.
But luckily, women do have Rac1, so there is no inflammation and women can breastfeed after each pregnancy.
What does cancer have to do with all this?
Rac1 is a protein that is part of epithelial cells. He 90% of cancers come from epithelial cells, so it’s very interesting to understand how they work. This study is a breakthrough because thanks to him they know that they can build and eliminate themselves. And the more you know about them, the closer you will find the reason why, at some point they fail and a cancer develops. Once the reason is known, they will be closer to finding a solution.
Akhtar explains it like this:
Rac1 is overexpressed in several types of cancer, including breast cancer, as well as Rac1 inhibitors, which are currently being considered as cancer therapies.
For some reason they don't know, Rac1 starts to malfunction and causes a tumor. That is why Rac1 blockers are being used as therapy against these tumors, to stop this abnormal activity.
Again in the words of Akhtar:
Until now, almost nothing was understood about what Rac1 does in healthy tissue and our study shows that, in the chest, one of its main functions is to prevent harmful inflammatory responses. Without Rac1 these responses intensify and prolong within the tissues. Since sustained inflammation is linked to cancer progression, the results show that eliminating or decreasing Rac1 may not be a good idea.
That is, thanks to the study, they already know what Rac1 does in healthy cells, something that prevents cancer because it decreases the inflammatory response; now they need to know why sometimes it acts against the body, causing cancer.
A bad translation
NewsCientist magazine talked about this study on September 29, and at the end of its article we read:
The findings could have consequences for understanding the development and progression of breast cancer. Although prolonging breastfeeding reduces the overall risk of cancer, women have a higher risk of developing cancer in the first 5 to 10 years after pregnancy, and are usually more aggressive. One theory is that inflammation during the remodeling period after breastfeeding could increase the risk of cancer.
A theory. A theory that is not explained in the study. A study that says nothing about probability. A theory about an inflammation that in the study explains that it hardly happens, because Rac1 avoids it.
This paragraph says that after pregnancy (5 to 10 years) there is an increased risk of breast cancer, and that it is aggressive. And he says that breastfeeding decreases that risk, as we already knew. The last sentence is nothing more than a way of trying to explain why breast cancer occurs, and they talk about remodeling after breastfeeding. But these do not seem to be the words of the researchers, because remodeling happens after breastfeeding, but also after pregnancy if the woman does not breastfeed (Or do not breasts grow in volume and structures to prepare them for breastfeeding?).
If a woman after childbirth does not breastfeed, the created structures die and must also be removed as soon as possible to prevent inflammation (and the increased risk of cancer), which is again done by Rac1; the same that after a few years can cause cancer without even knowing why.
Why do I say a bad translation? Well, because in the Huffington Post That paragraph was translated like this:
Women are at high risk for aggressive breast cancer between five and ten years after breastfeeding, and the theory so far has been that the post-lactation process could feed the growth of cancer.
Where some say pregnancy, others say breastfeeding. The information is different and the fright that women get too.
Photos | iStock
In Babies and more | Discontinuing breastfeeding conditions the occurrence of breast cancer, Breastfeeding protects against breast cancer, Could breast milk cure cancer?
