health:Diet affects the breast microbiome in mammals/Story: Bunny Bus

Diet affects the breast microbiome in mammals Diet influences the composition of microbial populations in the mammary glands of nonhuman primates, researchers report October 2 in the journal Cell Reports. Specifically, a Mediterranean diet increased the abundance of probiotic bacteria previously shown to inhibit tumor growth in animals. "We showed for the first time that breast-specific microbiome populations are significantly affected by diet, and this was in a well-established nonhuman primate model of women's health, increasing the likelihood that these findings will be important for human health," says first author Carol Shively of the Wake Forest School of Medicine. "The breast microbiome is now a target for intervention to protect women from breast cancer." Diet has been extensively studied as a lifestyle factor that could influence breast cancer development. Breast cancer risk in women is increased by consumption of a high-fat Western diet full of sweets and processed foods but reduced by a healthy Mediterranean diet consisting of vegetables, fish, and olive oil. Intriguingly, a recent study in humans revealed that malignant breast tumors have a lower abundance of Lactobacillus bacteria compared to benign lesions, suggesting that microbial imbalances could contribute to breast cancer. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/10/181002113947.htm?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed:+sciencedaily/health_medicine/cancer+(Cancer+News+--+ScienceDaily Story: Bunny Bus. By Ammi-Joun Paquette