A newly published study concludes that some familial breast cancers are caused from maternal diet during pregnancy and affects the health of daughters, granddaughters and even great-granddaughters. When an expecting mothers has a diet of excess fats and estrogen, it changes the DNA methylation patterns in the fetus’ breast tissue and fetal germ cells, making the fetus and future generations more susceptible to carcinogens and cancer throughout their life.
“We know that maternal diet can have long lasting effects on an offspring’s health, but this study demonstrates, for the first time, that a high fat diet or excess estrogen can affect multiple generations of a rat’s offspring, resulting in an increase in breast cancer not only in their daughters, but granddaughters and great granddaughters,” says the study’s senior investigator, Leena Hilakivi-Clarke, Ph.D., a professor of oncology at Georgetown Lombardi.
