In a study published in Applied and Environmental
In a study published in the journal Microbiology, researchers found that bacteria with the potential to cause breast cancer are usually found in the mammary glands of cancer patients, and that if an individual’s healthy mammary glands contain high levels of beneficial bacteria, these bacteria will protect women from cancer; the research may help scientists use probiotics to protect women from breast cancer. In the article, researcher Camilla
Urbaniak studied 58 patients who had undergone focal resection, benign (13 women) or cancerous (45 women) mastectomy, and the researchers analyzed breast tissue from the patients’ bodies, while 23 healthy women who had undergone breast reduction or enlargement were studied as controls. The researchers used DNA sequencing to identify the bacteria in the tissue samples and culture them to determine which bacteria were present. The researchers found that increased levels of E. coli and Staphylococcus epidermidis in breast cancer patients are thought to induce double-strand breaks in the DNA of HeLa cells, one of the most harmful types of DNA damage that can be induced by reproductive toxins, reactive oxygen radicals and ionizing radiation; the repair mechanism for DNA double-strand breaks is usually very error-prone, and the errors that occur usually lead to cancer development. In contrast, Lactobacillus spp. and Streptococcus spp. are considered to be health-promoting bacteria and these bacteria are usually very common in healthy breast tissue compared to cancerous breast tissue; both types of bacteria have certain anti-cancer properties, for example, natural killer cells are important to control tumor growth and low levels of immune cells are often directly related to high incidence of breast cancer, Streptococcus thermophilus is Streptococcus thermophilus can produce an antioxidant to neutralize reactive oxygen radicals, thereby reducing the DNA damaging effects of reactive oxygen radicals. Researcher Reid said the motivation for the study was that we all know that the incidence of breast cancer is reduced by breastfeeding and that breast milk contains a lot of beneficial bacteria, so we wanted to know if these beneficial bacteria would help reduce the risk of cancer or if other types of bacteria would affect the breast health of women who do not produce milk. Lactation may not improve the bacterial flora in the breast, after researchers from Spain found that women who consume Lactobacillus can reach the breast tissue, so the researchers asked the question whether for women, especially those at high risk of breast cancer, the intake of the probiotic Lactobacillus can increase the level of beneficial bacteria in the breast and thus inhibit the development of breast cancer. Of course the intake of probiotics may not only directly help to ward off the development of cancer, but also increase the level of probiotics in the body, and antibiotics that target cancer-promoting bacteria may also be effective in improving the management and treatment of breast cancer patients.