Eating Fatty Foods During Pregnancy Linked to Breast Cancer in Offspring

By Samantha Bonar Fri., Sep. 14 2012 at 6:00 AM

queso fundido

In the "Well This Really Sucks" department, a new study has found that women who eat a lot of fatty foods during pregnancy increase their daughters' -- and even their granddaughters' -- chances of getting breast cancer, the UK's Daily Mail reports.

Now we've gotta worry about what our grandmas ate?

Apparently so. According to research by scientists at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., eating an unhealthy diet can "permanently alter the cells of an unborn baby -- and future generations." Based on the findings, Britain's National Health Service is recommending that pregnant women do not "eat for two" and that they avoid fatty foods.

The Georgetown researchers fed pregnant rats either a normal diet or one much higher in fat. Even when the daughters and granddaughters of the mice who ate fatty foods were fed a healthy diet, they were found to have a significantly higher risk of developing breast cancer.

A fatty diet is linked to higher levels of the female sex hormone estrogen, which has been implicated in breast cancer.

While the findings have not been confirmed in humans, lead author Dr Sonia de Assis said: "What a mother eats or is exposed to during pregnancy can increase her daughter's breast cancer risk. What we found for the first time is that increased breast cancer risk of those daughters can be passed down to granddaughters and even great-granddaughters and that is without any further exposures."

The researchers, who published their study in Nature Communications, believe their findings could explain why breast cancer tends to run in families, yet most cases are not genetic. They believe diet and chemical exposures in the womb can switch on or off certain genes permanently for generations, a process called epigenetics.

All of the rat offspring in the Georgetown study appeared normal, but those exposed to high-fat diets had more terminal end buds -- structures in breast tissue linked to cancer that both rats and humans have.

When exposed to a cancer-causing agent, those rats developed more breast tumors than the rats whose mothers ate healthily (fruits, vegetables, whole grains and lean protein).

Thanks for eating all of that deviled ham-cheese dip, Grandma.

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Tags:

Breast Cancer, Daily Mail, Georgetown University, Samantha Bonar

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MiZzSaM4nTha

Ok, this article irrated me. If more estrogen in female bodies causes higher risks of breast cancer, then why are women, such as myself, aloud to take birth control, which puts higher amounts of estrogen into our body system? Isn't that putting us at a higher risk of getting breast cancer? Another one would be that women that are in metapause (sorry about spelling) are recommended estrogen pills? I would think that these pills give women a better chance of getting breast cancer cells that eating fatty food during pregnancy would.

andyboyd19

Not just Grandma, but what you might have eaten today.

Reports of 42% miscarriage rates in cows fed with genetically modified feed. Lateral gene transfer from genetically modified plants to animal stomachs that keep making the proteins and pesticides that are genetically engineered into the seeds in the laboratory. Same for humans.

There were ZERO peer-reviewed human trials on GMO food done before it was put on the market. The "No on Prop 37" industry shills are welcome to post a link to even one to debunk what I'm claiming here.

Also the GM corn’s DNA is modified to withstand dousing with their Roundup pesticide. It locks up minerals in the soil and the plant starves and dies of disease. Humans that eat the corn get a residue of the chemical in their body and the roundup chelates or clumps the minerals that are part of the plant's nutrients as well as the other minerals in your digestive system and you pee them out, thus you eat more and more as your body seeks the proper level of nutrition. Got obesity?

It's our right to know what we are eating. Monsanto thinks otherwise and is going to spend hundreds of millions to convince you otherwise.

Vote Yes on Prop 37 to label genetically modified food.