{"id":450137,"date":"2026-05-28T22:28:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-28T22:28:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/450137\/"},"modified":"2026-05-28T22:28:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-28T22:28:09","slug":"obesity-may-influence-how-breast-cancer-spreads","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/450137\/","title":{"rendered":"Obesity May Influence How Breast Cancer Spreads"},"content":{"rendered":"

OKLAHOMA CITY \u2013 Obesity may change how early-stage breast cancer becomes invasive, according to a study<\/a> by University of Oklahoma researchers published in The American Journal of Pathology.<\/p>\n

Obesity is a known risk factor for invasive breast cancer, but researchers have not fully understood how it helps early, noninvasive breast lesions become invasive cancer. These findings could help improve physicians\u2019 ability to predict and treat the disease.<\/p>\n

In the study, breast cancers in women without obesity showed the typical signs of becoming invasive, including rapid cell division and increased ability to invade nearby tissue. But in women with obesity, researchers found a different set of biological changes that appeared to help the cancer become invasive.<\/p>\n

The cancer environment became more inflamed, with the arrival of immune cells that advanced the growth of the tumor. The tumor cells also appeared better able to survive under stress, and there were changes in cellular metabolism \u2013 how the cells use nutrients for energy.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis could be why women with obesity are at higher risk for invasive breast cancer,\u201d said Bethany Hannafon, Ph.D., co-lead author of the study and an assistant professor in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the OU College of Medicine. \u201cThe changes that the cancer cells are undergoing are allowing them to survive and thrive.\u201d<\/p>\n

Researchers also identified differences in the \u201cneighborhood\u201d of cells and tissues surrounding the cancer. Epithelial cells, where the tumor originally develops, co-opt other cells around them to create an environment even more conducive to cancer growth.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn women with obesity, there is cooperation between all the cell types, not just the cancer cells, which helps an early pre-cancer to become an invasive breast cancer,\u201d said co-lead author Elizabeth Wellberg, Ph.D., assistant professor in the Department of Pathology at the OU College of Medicine. \u201cThat may be an area of future study \u2013 can a drug or intervention that targets only one cell type interrupt the whole network of progression toward invasive cancer?\u201d<\/p>\n

The research team also discovered higher levels of an enzyme called Sulfatase 2 (SULF2) in tumor cells of women with obesity, suggesting that it may play an important role in cancer progression. SULF2 will be another focus of future studies.<\/p>\n

Understanding what causes early, noninvasive tumors (ductal carcinoma in situ, or DCIS) to become invasive is important because not all women will develop invasive cancer, yet they receive the same treatment.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn women diagnosed with DCIS, about half will later develop invasive ductal carcinoma (IDC) that spreads into surrounding breast tissue. But we currently have no way of determining which women are most at risk. As a result, many women with DCIS receive the same treatments used for IDC, including surgery, radiation and sometimes hormone therapy. Overtreatment is a major concern, but if we had better ways of determining risk, unnecessary treatments could potentially be reduced,\u201d Hannafon said.<\/p>\n

While breast cancer survival rates have improved over the past two decades, the number of women diagnosed with invasive breast cancer has not declined, underscoring the need for better ways to predict and prevent disease progression.<\/p>\n

\u201cObesity is on the rise \u2013 50% of Americans are expected to be obese by 2030,\u201d said the paper\u2019s first author, Cole Hladik, Ph.D., who worked in Hannafon\u2019s lab while earning his doctorate. \u201cThat statistic further highlights the importance of considering a patient\u2019s metabolic health alongside the biology of the tumor itself.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"OKLAHOMA CITY \u2013 Obesity may change how early-stage breast cancer becomes invasive, according to a study by University…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":450138,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[138392,64470,5071,134,2386,111,139,69,19386,1518],"class_list":["post-450137","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-april-wilkerson","tag-college-of-medicine","tag-feature","tag-health","tag-homepage","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-press-release","tag-research"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450137","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=450137"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450137\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/450138"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=450137"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=450137"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=450137"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}