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+--- Thread: Why protein-poor diet during pregnancy increases risk of prostate cancer in offspring (/thread-15326.html)
Why protein-poor diet during pregnancy increases risk of prostate cancer in offspring - C C - Jan 26, 2024
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1032318
INTRO: Experiments with rats conducted by researchers at São Paulo State University (UNESP) in Brazil help understand why descendants of women who were malnourished during pregnancy tend to face a higher risk of prostate cancer in adulthood.
In a first study, conducted with support from FAPESP, the researchers detected alterations in gene expression that may have been associated with the hormone imbalance observed in the rats’ offspring and the heightened risk of prostate cancer.
“Lack of protein during gestation and lactation deregulates the molecular pathways involved in normal development of the prostate, leading to impairment of its growth in young offspring. This was already known [read more at: agencia.fapesp.br/28399]. We’ve now discovered that a protein-poor diet during the embryo stage and the first two years after birth alters the expression of more than 700 genes in offspring, including the gene ABCG1, which is associated with prostate cancer,” said Luis Antônio Justulin Junior, who leads the research and is a professor at the Botucatu Institute of Biosciences (IBB-UNESP).
In a second study, deregulation of a specific type of RNA (microRNA-206) correlated with an early-life increase in the hormone estrogen, a pronounced trait in the offspring of female rats fed a protein-restricted diet during gestation and lactation, and a factor associated with a heightened risk of prostate cancer.
“The results showed once again how much diet and everything else that happens in the initial stages of development determine the trajectory of health and disease in offspring. They were a key contribution to our understanding of the first 1,000 days of life, the period comprising pregnancy, breastfeeding and infancy until the baby’s second birthday,” Justulin said... (MORE - no ads)