4.3 Review

Environmental Exposures during Puberty: Window of Breast Cancer Risk and Epigenetic Damage

Publisher

MDPI
DOI: 10.3390/ijerph17020493

Keywords

environment; breast cancer risk; empowerment

Funding

  1. National Institutes of Health/National Cancer Institute (NIH/NCI) [R01CA170851, R01CA192914, U01CA189283, R01CA220693, 3U01CA189283-S1, P30CA033572, P20 CA24619]

Ask authors/readers for more resources

During puberty, a woman's breasts are vulnerable to environmental damage (window of vulnerability). Early exposure to environmental carcinogens, endocrine disruptors, and unhealthy foods (refined sugar, processed fats, food additives) are hypothesized to promote molecular damage that increases breast cancer risk. However, prospective human studies are difficult to perform and effective interventions to prevent these early exposures are lacking. It is difficult to prevent environmental exposures during puberty. Specifically, young women are repeatedly exposed to media messaging that promotes unhealthy foods. Young women living in disadvantaged neighborhoods experience additional challenges including a lack of access to healthy food and exposure to contaminated air, water, and soil. The purpose of this review is to gather information on potential exposures during puberty. In future directions, this information will be used to help elementary/middle-school girls to identify and quantitate environmental exposures and develop cost-effective strategies to reduce exposures.

Authors

I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.

Reviews

Primary Rating

4.3
Not enough ratings

Secondary Ratings

Novelty
-
Significance
-
Scientific rigor
-
Rate this paper

Recommended

No Data Available
No Data Available