THE ESSENTIAL
- According to statistics, 1 in 8 women will develop breast cancer during her lifetime.
- Some risk factors for the disease can easily be reduced on a daily basis.
According to the 2022 studies, interesting or marginal, can you tell us if hormonal treatments increase the risk of breast cancer?
The old hormonal treatments, I am talking about the replacement treatments that are given to postmenopausal women to reduce, among other things, osteoporosis, have been associated with an increase of around 20% in the risk of breast cancer. This association is not found with more modern hormonal treatments.
So, you have to beware of two things. The first is to say, as thirty years ago on television sets, that all menopausal women should benefit from all hormonal treatments and that it was miraculous, extraordinary. And on the contrary, to say today that they should no longer be prescribed at all. There are definitely symptoms that get a lot better and in particular the horrible hot flashes that some postmenopausal women experience. It is especially necessary to discuss with his gynecologist.
“It’s excessive alcohol consumption that greatly increases the risk”
Too few women know that alcohol increases the risk of breast cancer?
Alcohol increases the risk of many cancerous diseases. Let’s not be puritanical, it is excessive alcohol consumption that greatly increases the risk. Moderate and reasonable consumption, if possible not every day, is still quite safe in a country where it is the tradition.
Can night work make the bed of cancers?
There are several studies that show this. But there is a more recent French study, which comes to us from Inserm and which suggests that night work could be associated with an increase of around 40% in the occurrence of cancers in general, cancer of the breast in particular. And especially if the night work lasted more than four years and especially if there were at least three nights a week and when there are alternations, day work, night work, etc. It is a biological rationale. Sleep cycles are regulated by melatonin. This hormone has a “chronomodulated” rhythm, and if you work at night, you suppress the melatonin peaks. However, melatonin has a very powerful antioxidant effect which is considered, by some, as a preventive effect on cancer.
Let’s be very careful all the same because association does not always mean causality. It is also possible, for example, that you have night workers who smoke more than day workers. This would be called a confounding factor. Night work should probably be avoided or minimized as much as possible. Use good judgment and common sense!
Endocrine disruptors may play a role in the occurrence of cancer
There is also a study from you, in Lyon, which says that pollution is responsible for breast cancer?
We have in Lyon, and that since General de Gaulle, the International Center for Research on Cancer (IARC), whose job it is to identify what are called carcinogens, particularly in the environment. They carry out very sophisticated studies and it is not simple, but indeed environmental pollutants play a role and in particular hydrocarbons and molecules which modify the environment on the endocrinological level, what are called endocrine disruptors, can indeed play a role in the occurrence of cancer.
First of all, it is quite clear that it has nothing to do with tobacco and alcohol. No need to worry about pollution if you smoke two packs of cigarettes a day. For many environmental pollutants, the situation has improved over the past century. There are far fewer of certain pollutants like sulfur dioxide in the atmosphere. And there are less hydrocarbons because at the beginning of the last century, we heated with coal and wood and in the cities, it was real braziers. Today, the air is actually much cleaner. Let’s have some optimism!
You can find the interview in pictures here:
Professor Gilles Freyer’s book, Breast cancer, information for treatmentpublished by Doctor Lemoine, is available via this link.