Breakthroughs in the fight against breast cancer

As Breast Cancer Awareness Month begins, I want to shine a bright light on one of the most incredible local organizations I know and have ever worked with: Find The Cause Breast Cancer Foundation.

Although they are a locally based group of incredible individuals and experts who are doing amazing work in preventing the disease, their work is receiving international recognition. To celebrate and continue their life-saving research, I would like to invite you to join me and my amazing co-chairs like Katie Lee Biegel from The Food Network at the Prevention Party on October 24th at the Omni Boston Hotel Seaport for Find The Cause. (For tickets, visit Findthecausebcf.org).

As a breast cancer survivor, I know the value of this organization's approach to treating the disease. One in eight women will be diagnosed with breast cancer during their lifetime. At the same time, 90% of women diagnosed have no family history of it. This means that in these cases the cause of the disease lies in our environment.

Find The Cause funds the critical research of its consortium – a team of four pioneering scientists who are making tremendous progress in breast cancer prevention.

Through my years of volunteer work with Find The Cause, I have developed a tremendous appreciation for the groundbreaking and life-saving work of these four scientists.

The four scientists are David H. Sherr and Stefano Monti, professors at Boston University School of Medicine; and Gail E. Sonenshein and Charlotte Kuperwasser, both professors at Tufts University. Their extraordinary work together can be boiled down to two areas.

The first is what they call primary prevention: their goal is to identify which environmental chemicals are carcinogenic and eliminate them. Then there is secondary prevention: This involves identifying who has been exposed, predicting impending cancers and intercepting them by strengthening cancer immunity. Learn how cancer develops and identify its vulnerabilities. and extrapolate how environmental chemicals contribute to breast cancer.

I was lucky enough to work with Dr. David Sherr and asked him about the work of the organization and what we can all do to prevent the disease.

Q: Considering that one in eight women will be diagnosed with breast cancer in their lifetime and 90% of these women have no family history of the disease, it clearly means that the cause lies elsewhere. What does this mean in terms of what you find?

A: Currently, it appears that environmental chemicals or other as yet unknown factors are responsible for approximately 70 to 90% of breast cancer cases. This means that 70-90% of breast cancers are theoretically preventable. That's a lot of lives saved.

Q: What major breakthroughs have you and your colleagues had?

A: We find that entire groups of environmental chemicals disrupt some common molecular signaling pathways that normally regulate cell development and function. There are two key similarities in the mechanisms of environmental chemical carcinogenesis (cancer initiation): 1) Environmental chemicals influence how cells grow, when they die, and who the cells believe they are, that is, they place cells in an identity crisis in which they are not alive. I don't know which organ they belong to. As a result, they metastasize throughout the body. 2) Many of these environmental carcinogens suppress the immune system. Almost everyone has had cancer in the past but (hopefully) doesn't know it because their immune system killed the cancer before it grew large enough to be detected by imaging or cause symptoms. When this system is compromised, the likelihood of full-blown malignancy increases. So it's kind of a double whammy; Environmental chemicals cause normal cells to misbehave and they suppress the immune system, the ultimate fail-safe system for killing malignant cells.

Q: And are you working to stop the growth of cancerous tumors before they form?

A: Exactly. As we observe how these molecular pathways and cell fates are disrupted, we learn how to intervene at the molecular level. For example, because we know how at least some of the environmental chemicals work at the molecular level, we are able to develop non-toxic drugs that block or intercept receptor signaling and cancer development. We have shown that drugs that target the hydrocarbon receptor (AhR) not only minimize the harmful chemical signals within cells that would otherwise force the cells to move toward malignancy, but also strengthen the immune system. This is how effectively a drug can reverse the double whammy mentioned above.

That's why we're trying to develop technologies that are able to detect molecular changes that are precursors to cells trying to become malignant. Ideally, this would mean a simple blood test that would identify a class of molecules (snippets of cancer cell DNA, RNA, protein, or other molecules) present in the blood whose profile says “bad things are coming.” I don't want to underestimate how difficult that task is, but we are making progress.

Q: What are the next steps and goals for your team in the coming year?

A: We have three main goals for this year: 1) Optimize cancer defenses – harmless drugs that block the effects of some environmental carcinogens (e.g. hydrocarbons, dioxins) and boost immunity long before cancer develops. 2) Develop breast organoids from human breast tissue that will allow us to study the effects of environmental chemicals on breast development and carcinogenesis in tissue culture. 3) And most difficult of all: test our ability to detect molecules present in breast tissue and blood that indicate: a) exposure to one or more carcinogens and; b) the presence of cells trying to turn into cancer.

Q: Where are these dangerous chemicals lurking in our everyday lives and what measures can we take to reduce our exposure?

A: Where are they? You name it. Some (e.g. hydrocarbons, dioxins) are in the air we breathe (although the air has gotten better thanks to the Clean Air Act). In foods we eat (e.g. pesticides, herbicides, plasticizers, PFAS, etc.). And in the water we drink (e.g. PFAS, PCBs, heavy metals, pesticides, herbicides, solvents, etc.). Knowledge is power.

If you go to the Find The Cause website and go to the Resources section, you will see articles and videos about where the chemicals are and how to avoid them.

Q: What everyday things can we all do to avoid dangerous chemicals in our lives that could cause breast cancer?

A: Educate yourself. Go to findthecausebcf.org and find out more. Buy organic. Get your water tested and use reverse osmosis water filters (carbon filters are good, but not perfect). Check the ingredients list of the products you purchase. Use the apps that identify unwanted chemicals in a range of products. If possible, avoid or minimize the use of nonstick pans, plastics containing BPA, cosmetics and personal care products that contain xenoestrogens, flame retardant clothing, glyphosate and other chemical herbicides.

Try not to eat very fatty foods – especially if you have already been diagnosed (as these chemicals tend to dissolve in fat, not water). And never microwave food in plastic bags or pre-made food packaging.