THE ESSENTIAL
- According to Health Insurance, about 2,600 cases of breast cancer are attributable to smoking in women aged 30 and over.
- Regular physical activity reduces the risk of breast cancer after menopause.
PAlmost 60,000 breast cancers were detected in 2018, according to the national cancer institute. In the same year, 12,146 deaths were recorded due to this disease, according to Public Health France.
Altering SULT1A1 gene activity may reduce breast cancer risk
Among the risk factors is age – almost 80% of breast cancers develop after the age of 50 according to health insurance -, family history, lifestyle habits, including alcohol consumption, tobacco, unbalanced diet, etc. But there are also genetic predispositions.
On this last point, researchers have just made a discovery: modifying the activity of a gene could reduce the risk of developing breast cancer. Their work has been published in the journal Communications Biology.
“We have found a gene, SULT1A1, that may help doctors reduce the risk of breast cancer in women, especially if they have inherited a BRCA1 gene mutation“, explains Logan Walker, one of the authors of this study. We also found that women who inherited a BRCA1 gene with missing segments are, for yet unknown reasons, most at risk of developing breast cancer.“.
Indeed, for breast and ovarian cancers, pathogenic variants are particularly problematic when they affect the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes. According to one study published in 2017 in the journal JAMA, they increase the risk of developing cancer by 70% for the breast and 20 to 40% for the ovary. Thus, during their work, the researchers were interested in 26,000 women who had mutations in these breast cancer genes, BRCA1 and BRCA2, and who therefore had a higher risk of developing the disease.
Towards a new drug to reduce the risk of breast cancer
Thus, the researchers observed that lower levels of the protein produced by another gene, called SULT1A1 which plays an important role in the metabolism of carcinogens, reduced the risk of breast cancer, especially in women who have a mutation of the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes. They achieved this result by blocking the activity of the SULT1A1 gene in breast cells.
On the strength of this discovery, the researchers intend to continue their research in order to develop a new drug which would block the activity of the SULT1A1 gene to reduce the risk of developing breast cancer, in particular for women who have a BRCA1 gene mutation and BRCA2.
A breakthrough that could be major because, currently, the most effective risk reduction strategy for women at high risk of developing breast cancer, i.e. those with mutations in breast cancer genes BRCA1 and BRCA2, is mastectomy. A heavy intervention both physically and psychologically.