Milk
from Pregnant Cows Is Responsible for the Development of Breast, Ovarian and
Corpus Uteri Cancers
Adapted
from:
Ganmaa D and Sato A.
The Possible Role of Female Sex Hormones in Milk from Pregnant Cows in the Development
of Breast, Ovarian and Corpus Uteri Cancers.
Medical Hypotheses 2005; 65 (6): 1028-37.
Abstract
The continued increase in incidence of some hormone-related cancers worldwide is of great concern. Although estrogen-like substances in the environment were blamed for this increase, the possible role of endogenous estrogens from food has not been widely discussed. We are particularly concerned about cows milk, which contains a considerable quantity of estrogens. The milk that we are now consuming is quite different from that consumed 100 years ago. Unlike their pasture-fed counterparts of 100 years ago, modern dairy cows are usually pregnant and continue to lactate during the latter half of pregnancy, when the concentration of estrogens in blood, and hence in milk, increases. The correlation of incidence and mortality rates with environmental variables in worldwide countries provides useful clues to the etiology of cancer. In this study, we correlated incidence rates for breast, ovarian, and corpus uteri cancers (1993-97 from Cancer Incidence in Five Continents) with food intake (1961-97 from FAOSTAT) in 40 countries. Meat was most closely correlated with the breast cancer incidence (r=0.827), followed by milk (0.817) and cheese (0.751). While stepwise multiple-regression analysis (SMRA) identified meat as the factor contributing most greatly to the incidence of breast cancer ([R]=0.862), the dietary factor identified as the most significant contributor to the mortality was milk plus cheese ([R]=0.814). Milk was most closely correlated with the incidence of ovarian cancer (r=0.779), followed by animal fats (0.717) and cheese (0.697). SMRA revealed that milk plus cheese make the greatest contribution to the incidence of ovarian cancer ([R]=0.767). Milk was most closely correlated with corpus uteri cancer (r=0.814), followed by cheese (0.787). SMRA revealed that milk plus cheese make the most significant contribution to the incidence of corpus uteri cancer ([R]=0.861). In conclusion, increased consumption of animal-derived food may have adverse effects on the development of hormone-dependent cancers. Among dietary risk factors, we are most concerned with milk and dairy products, because the milk we drink today is produced from pregnant cows, in which estrogen and progesterone levels are markedly elevated. Introduction Breast cancer is one of the most frequent cancers among women (1). The incidence of breast cancer has been increasing in both developed and developing countries (2). The fact that people from low-risk countries increase their risk on immigrating to higher-risk countries suggest that some modifiable lifestyle and/or environmental factors are responsible for the development of breast cancer (3). It has been postulated that most cancer-afflicted women develop subclinical breast cancer at an early age and that diet plays an important role in the progression from such lesions to clinical disease (4). In addition, the variation in the breast cancer incidence rate worldwide suggests that lifestyle factors, especially diet, influence breast cancer risk. Epithelial ovarian cancer kills more women each year than all other gynecological cancers combined (5). The incidence of ovarian cancer also varies widely among countries. In general, incidence rates are higher in developed than in less developed countries. Rates are higher among younger Chinese and Japanese women born in the United States than among their Asian-born counterparts (6). Such immigration studies suggest that lifestyle and environmental factors play a major role in the etiology of this malignancy. Endometrial cancer is the sixth most common cancer worldwide, accounting for ~2% of all cancers in women (7). As with breast and ovarian cancers, there is a wide difference in the incidence rate of corpus uteri cancer across countries. The rate amongst U.S. Japanese is several-fold higher than that for Japanese living in their native country (3). This finding suggests that lifestyle and environmental factors, rather than hereditary influence, affect the incidence of this cancer. The common feature of breast, ovarian, and corpus uteri cancers is that they are comparatively rare in women under 40 years of age. The risk increases sharply after around age 40 and peaks between the ages of 65 and 79 (8). The three malignancies share common risk factors, including obesity, menarche at young age, late menopause, and nulliparity, in addition to an increased risk inherent to and dependent upon family history (5). In addition, the risk of these three cancers changes within a few years of shifts in exposure to sex hormones, and some of the changes in risk persist for many years, indicating that hormones can affect both early and late stages of carcinogenesis. Sex hormones may play a major role in their etiology, likely by controlling the rate of cell division, cell differentiation, and number of susceptible cells (9). According to Armstrong and Doll (10), the correlation of incidence and mortality rate with the prevalence of environmental agents in various geographical areas provides useful clues to the etiology of cancer. In this study, we used incidence and mortality data for the three most prevalent female cancers breast, ovarian, and corpus uteri cancers from 40 countries and correlated the rates with dietary variables. Materials and Methods Cancer
incidence Several countries have more than one cancer registry. If more than one registry was available for a country, those that stated The editors were unable to verify these data were excluded from this study. The remaining age-specific incidence rates in the same country were standardized to the world population. The mean age-adjusted incidence rate was used as a representative rate for Australia, Brazil, China, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Poland, Spain, Switzerland, Thailand, and the United Kingdom. In some countries, cancer registries provided data for different ethnic groups. In this study, the rates for Africans were used for Zimbabwe; those for all Jews were used for Israel; those for Kuwaitis were used for Kuwait; and those for non-Maori were used for New Zealand. In several
countries, only one cancer registry reported data to the IARC. The incidence
rate from the registry was then assumed to represent the incidence for
the whole country (Algeria, Argentina, Austria, Columbia, Costa Rica,
Ecuador, Ireland, Korea, Mali, Malta, Philippines, Uganda, Uruguay, and
Viet Nam). Food
consumption Results Incidence
of breast cancer and food intake
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The simple correlation coefficients between the incidence rate of breast cancer and food intake in 40 countries are shown in Table 1. Of the food items examined, meat was the most closely correlated with incidence of this cancer incidence (r=0.827) (Fig.1), followed by milk (0.817) (Fig. 2) and cheese (0.751). By contrast, cereals (-0.467) and pulses (-0.438) were negatively correlated with the incidence of breast cancer. Stepwise multiple-regression analysis revealed that meat (1961-97) contributed most to the incidence of breast cancer in 1993-97 (standardized regression coefficient [R]=0.862) (Table 2). The correlation coefficient between the age-adjusted incidence rate and age-adjusted mortality rate of breast cancer in the 40 countries examined was r=0.872. The age-adjusted mortality rates of breast cancer had the highest correlation with cheese consumption (r=0.725), followed by fats (0.670) and butter (0.595) (Table 3). Incidence
of ovarian cancer and food intake
The simple correlation coefficient, r, showed the greatest correlation between milk and ovarian cancer (r=0.779), followed by animal fats (0.717) and cheese (0.697) (Table 1). By contrast, cereals (r=-0.520) and pulses (-0.465) were negatively correlated with the incidence of ovarian cancer. The results of stepwise multiple-regression analysis are presented in Table 2. The analysis identified milk + cheese as the factor contributing most to the incidence of ovarian cancer (standardized regression coefficient [R]=0.767), while it identified cereals as a factor contributing to a decreased incidence. The correlation coefficient between mortality and incidence of ovarian cancer was as high as r=0.808. The food most closely correlated with mortality due to ovarian cancer was fats (r=0.818), followed by milk (0.790) and cheese (0.731) (Table 3). Cereals, by contrast, were negatively correlated with the mortality (-0.391). Incidence
corpus uteri cancer and food intake
Milk was most closely correlated with the incidence of corpus uteri cancer (r=0.814), followed by cheese (0.787) and meat (0.782) (Table 1). Conversely, pulses were negatively correlated with the incidence of this cancer (-0.437). Stepwise multiple-regression-analysis identified milk + cheese as the factor contributing most to an increased incidence of corpus uteri cancer (standardized regression coefficient [R]=0.861) (Table 2). The mortality rates of corpus uteri cancer were weakly correlated with its incidence rate (r=0.251). The highest age-adjusted mortality rate was 4.4 for Uruguay, and Mali had the lowest rate of 0.24. As with the incidence data, the age-adjusted mortality rates of this cancer had the highest correlation with milk consumption (r=0.545), followed by cheese (0.406) and animal fats (0.403) (Table 3). Discussion Epidemiological studies that correlate cancer incidence and mortality rates with the dietary practices in various geographical areas have certain shortcomings. The rates of incidence and mortality of any cancer are affected by regional differences in diagnosis, registration and certification, and the fatality rate of the cancer. The cancer incidence and mortality data from developing countries are clearly less complete than those from developed countries because of problems with underdiagnosis and undercertification due to the local medical and economic background, together with problems enumerating the population. In addition, the consumption data for each food item in a country are not based on actual nutrition surveys, but are roughly estimated using the following equation: food supply per capita = (production + import + stock changes - export - feed - seed - processing - waste - other uses)/population. Hence, it is difficult to determine the extent to which the available food data translates into daily per capita consumption. Nevertheless, the overall relationships are convincing, plausible, and at least serve as guides for further epidemiological and experimental studies (10,14). Breast
cancer In this study, the food that was most closely correlated with the incidence of breast cancer was meat, followed by milk and cheese. Many other epidemiological studies have found positive correlations between breast cancer risk and the consumption of meat, milk, and dairy products (14,17-21). According to La Vecchia and Pampallona (18), who found a significantly positive correlation between breast cancer mortality and meat and milk consumption, milk and cheese were the only dietary variables to remain significantly positive after the correlation was adjusted for the womens age at the birth of their first child and economic variables. Since dietary fat has long been considered a major risk factor for breast cancer, special attention has been given to the high fat content of milk (17,19,21-23). However, milk fat cannot account for all of the breast cancer risk related to milk consumption. In fact, consumption of whole milk has declined steadily since the 1950s, and been replaced by fat-reduced milk (24), yet the incidence of breast cancer has increased worldwide over the last 50 years (25). Estrogens and progesterone are breast cancer promoters because of their physiological roles stimulating the mammary gland (26). The major sources of animal-derived estrogens in the human diet are milk and dairy products, which account for 60-80% of the estrogens consumed (27). Most milk for human consumption is obtained from heifers in the latter half of pregnancy, when the estrogen levels in cows are markedly elevated (28). Although
the oral bioactivity of free estradiol and estrone may be relatively low,
estrone sulfate, which is a major estrogen in milk, has high oral bioactivity.
Once inside the body it can be readily converted to estrone and estradiol.
Postmenopausally, estrone is the source of most circulating estradiol,
and estrone sulfate is the most abundant circulating estrogen (29). In
addition to the long plasma half-life of estrone sulfate, it is absorbed
in the intestinal mucosa either virtually unchanged (30,31) or by enterohepatic
circulation. Remesar et al. (32) calculated estrone intake in a standard
human diet and found that 46.6% of estrone came from dairy products. Some human studies have also demonstrated that milk consumption increases the circulating estrogen level. South African black males who had switched from a vegetarian diet to a Western diet with milk, butter, and meat showed an increase in circulating estrogen levels (34). The relationship between milk consumption and plasma estrogen concentrations is also supported by the fact that Asian women, whose consumption of milk and dairy products is low, have lower plasma estrogen concentrations than those of Caucasian women, whose dairy product consumption is high (35). In addition to estrogens, milk also contains insulin-like growth factor I (IGF-I) in nanomolar concentrations (36). IGF-I plays a role in the growth and incidence of neoplastic pathology (37) by regulating the growth of cancer cells and it stimulates the proliferation of human breast cancer cell line MCF-7 (38). Further, estrogen and IGF-I have mutually favorable actions on breast cancer cell proliferation. In a human study, plasma IGF-I concentration increased by 10% when healthy subjects consumed cows milk (39). In fact, the consumption of commercial milk pasteurized by heat at 125-130 C was confirmed to increase the plasma level of IGF-1 in rats (33). Obesity has been linked with breast, corpus uteri and ovarian cancers, probably via its effect on circulating estrogens (40,41). This finding is biologically plausible, since a greater amount of fat results in greater conversion of androstenedione to estrone by aromatase and lower levels of sex hormone-binding-globulin (SHBG), which leads to higher levels of bioavailable estrone and estradiol (42). We should pay particular attention to the sex hormone in modern cows milk, because epidemiological studies of large scale have repeatedly confirmed the increased incidence of breast cancer in postmenopausal women who are currently undergoing hormone replacement therapy (43,44). Ovarian
cancer Several research groups have reported associations between ovarian cancer and the intake of specific milk products, such as butter (52,53), whole milk (53-55), skim milk (45), yogurt (48-55), cottage cheese (48), and ice cream (53). One study found a three-fold greater risk of ovarian cancer among women who drank at least one glass of whole milk per day compared with those who did not (54). Risk was also elevated for non-fat milk, eggs and cheese, and dairy products in general (45). In our study, the stepwise multiple-regression analysis revealed that milk + cheese contributed the most to the incidence of ovarian cancer. Our results are consistent with previous ecological studies that found an association between ovarian cancer and milk consumption (14). The etiology of ovarian cancer is still poorly understood, although it is clear that hormonal factors are involved. Higher IGF-I levels and reduced IGF-I binding protein levels have also been found in patients suffering from ovarian cancer (56,57). Epidemiological observations and experimental data indicate that estrogens have an adverse effect on the ovarian epithelium (7). It is not unreasonable to presume that estrogens and growth factors in milk and dairy products are associated with the development of ovarian cancer by changing the hormonal environment in the ovaries. Corpus
uteri cancer In our study, the incidence of corpus uteri cancer was most closely correlated with the consumption of milk and cheese. As discussed in the section on breast cancer, milk and dairy products contain considerable amounts of estrogens and growth factors. Estrogens induce various tumors in laboratory animals and have been recognized as carcinogens in humans, raising the risk for uterine cancer, in addition to breast and ovarian cancers (60). Several trials have established a link between endometrium cancer and the IGF system (61-63), including the stimulating effect of IGF-I in vitro on endometrial cancer cells, and increased circulating levels of serum IGF-I and decreased insulin-like growth-factor-binding protein (IGFBP-1) in women with corpus uteri cancer. In conclusion, we hypothesize that female sex hormones in milk and dairy products have a common effect on the development of breast, ovarian and corpus uteri cancers. Further epidemiological and mechanistic studies are needed to verify this hypothesis. References 1.
Parkin DM. The global burden of cancer. Semin Cancer Biol 1998;8:219-35. |
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