Women exposed to toxic chemicals called dioxins in food may be safe from increased breast cancer risk, researchers have found.
These chemicals are created as a by-product of industrial processes including waste incineration, and paper bleaching. They have previously been linked to several types of cancer due to their disruption of the endocrine system, but the link remains unclear for breast cancer.
As diet is one of the main sources of dioxin exposure, a team led by Dr Beatrice Fervers of the Leon Berard Cancer Centre, Lyon, France, looked at the link between breast cancer and foods which are most contaminated with dioxins such as dairy products, meat and seafood.
They took information from 63,830 women taking part in a long-term study of cancer risk factors. Participants were followed from 1993 to 2008, during which 3,465 of the women developed breast cancer.
Overall, dietary dioxin exposure was not linked to breast cancer. A slightly raised risk was seen for post-menopausal women in the top quarter for dioxin intake.
Full details appeared in the journal Breast Cancer Research.
The authors write: "Although diet is considered the primary source of dioxin exposure, no previous study has been published on dietary dioxin exposure in relation to BC risk."
They call for further research to include both dietary and environmental exposures to dioxins.
Dr Fervers commented: "While our study results seem to suggest absence of breast cancer risk associated with dietary exposure to dioxins in low-exposed women, we cannot rule out risk in high-exposed populations, risk associated with early-life exposure or pregnancy period and risk associated with combined dietary and environmental exposures."
Danjou, A. M. N. et al. Estimated dietary dioxin exposure and breast cancer risk among women from the French E3N prospective cohort. Breast Cancer Research 17 March 2015; doi: 10.1186/s13058-015-0536-9
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