Is It True Progesterone Is A Breast Cancer Risk Factor?

August 21, 2009

Scientists at Michigan State University have found exposure to the hormone progesterone activates genes that trigger inflammation in the mammary gland.

The article posted in Medical News Today maintains that this progesterone-induced inflammation may be a key factor in increasing the risk of breast cancer.

“Progesterone turns on a wide array of genes involved in several biological processes, including cell adhesion, cell survival and inflammation,” said physiology professor Sandra Haslam, co-author of the paper and director of the Breast Cancer and the Environment Research Center at MSU. “All of these processes may be relevant to the development of breast cancer.”

Virginia Hopkins comments …

Excerpt

A study from Michigan State University (MSU) has created some controversy about progesterone, inflammation and breast cancer. The study was ostensibly set up to learn more about differences in how the two primary progesterone receptors, A and B, affect breast cancer. To biochemists involved in this particular microcosm, it’s an intriguing study, and the authors should have left it at that. Instead, they created a press release aimed at you and me, that has been widely circulated in the media, that is misleading and inaccurate. >> read Full Article