Kefah Mokbel, Chair of Breast Cancer Surgery at London Breast Institute and Honorary Professor of Medicine at Cardiff University School of Medicine, shared a post on LinkedIn about a paper by Elissar Azzi et al. published in the International Journal of Cancer:
“When Stress Leaves a Mark: How Life Events Shape Breast Cancer Risk Through Epigenetics
A landmark study from the Finnish Twin Cohort, spanning 36 years and over 10,000 women, provides compelling evidence that stressful life events (SLEs) may independently increase the risk of breast cancer.
The researchers found that experiencing as few as two to three stressful events was associated with a 24% higher risk of developing breast cancer, with the effect most pronounced among women born before 1950. Interestingly, twin-pair analyses suggested that this relationship is not explained by inherited genetic risk but rather by environmental and epigenetic mechanisms.
Supporting this, DNA methylation profiling identified 42 CpG sites connecting stress exposure with breast cancer risk, pointing toward an epigenetic pathway. These findings highlight that the impact of psychosocial stress may extend beyond mental health, leaving biological ‘marks’ that contribute to cancer risk.
Further research is now needed to explore how stress-driven epigenetic changes influence disease development – and whether these effects may even span across generations.”
Title: Long-term impact of stressful life events on breast cancer risk: A 36-year genetically informed prospective study in the Finnish Twin Cohort
Authors: Elissar Azzi, Hannes Bode, Teemu Palviainen, Mikaela Hukkanen, Miina Ollikainen, Jaakko Kaprio
You can read the Full Article in the International Journal of Cancer.
More posts featuring Kefah Mokbel.