Because of its size and longevity, the Child Health and Development Studies is helping researchers tease apart the complex series of events and exposures starting before birth that may lead to cancer and other diseases many decades later. A growing number of studies suggests that the hormones and chemicals a child is exposed to in the womb may play a big role in her development of a number of diseases.
The decades-old blood is what makes the research so exciting, said Julia Brody, executive director of the Silent Spring Institute, a non-profit breast cancer research organization based in Massachusetts.
“It’s so helpful to have both measurements collected years ago and the potential to follow people for a long time to see what happens,” said Brody, who is an advisor for the Three Generations Study.
In the 1950s, scientists were not thinking about the fetal origins of adult diseases. They were not archiving blood and urine from pregnant women and their newborns for future generations of researchers to study. That all changed with the forward-thinking scientists in Oakland.
In 1959, under the direction of Jacob Yerushalmy, a professor of biostatistics at the University of California, Berkeley, the first participants were enrolled through their health insurance provider, Kaiser Permanente. Over the years, many study families stuck with Kaiser. Having all study participants initially on a single health plan with its own clinics and hospitals helped researchers gather detailed information and samples from the families.
At doctor’s visits during childhood and adolescence, Ida Washington, who lives in San Leandro, Calif., remembers filling out questionnaires and having body measurements taken. “I never thought much about it,” she said. “The tests were just part of the routine.” It wasn’t until several years later, when she received that letter in the mail, that she realized what it was all for.
Ida works as a claims assistant for Kaiser Permanente in Oakland. She has a 30-year-old son she hopes will be asked to participate in a men’s follow-up study. Her mother, Willie Mae, who worked as a nursing aid in convalescent and private homes at the time, no longer remembers when she was approached about the study or why she joined. “I think shortly after Ida was born,” she said. “I had three older children. Ida was my baby.”
The blood that Ida’s mother and the others provided years ago was frozen and now resides at a storage facility in Reston, Va. Cohn, the study director, rations serum from the archived vials sparingly. When the vials are gone, so is the information – and potential – that they hold.
New blood and urine samples, provided by the second generation of women, now in their late 40s and early 50s, as well as their daughters, are processed and stored at a state-of-the-art biorepository on the University of California, Berkeley's new Bay campus.
Decades ago, blood was simply put in a vial and frozen. Now scientists have come up with more sophisticated methods of dividing and preserving samples to ensure that researchers can extract even more data, explained Nina Holland, a professor at the School of Public Health and director of the biorepository where the new vials are kept.
Holland’s biorepository catalogues and stores specimens from 32 completed and ongoing scientific studies, but few of them contain the depth of information as the Child Health and Development Studies.
“The fact that you can go back 50 years is remarkable. This is probably one of the most valuable studies,” she said. It not only traces the health of its women over generations, but also allows researchers to go back and make connections between exposures they had early in life and diseases they developed as adults.
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Add CommentFinally, some interest in breast cancer causes. Cedric Garland, of UCSD, has been proposing for some time a theory that seems so logical that it's startling that it has had so little consideration. Go to grassrootshealthdotorg to read his scholarly discussion.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNew cells are being created in all of us all the time. As new cells are generated, some with genetic imperfections, there is a perpetual tension that an imperfect cell, while not suited for the tissue function it is in, will be able to reproduce in an uncontrolled manner. A cell can either survive because it is a "good liver cell" or "because it can reproduce faster than the surrounding cells." Fast cell division is of no value to the liver, but is great for the imperfect cell. Fast, uncontrolled cell growth -- sounds like the start of cancer.
Apoptosis, programmed cell death, is the body's way to rid itself of those imperfect cells, and apoptosis requires intracellular communication to be effective. Vitamin D has been well demonstrated to be essential for that communication and guess what, we are almost all of us Vit D deficient. The "naturally occurring" serum level for Vit D is 80-100 ng/ml, yet the IOM thinks 20 is "enough". I've yet to see a scholarly study of Vit D that considers the "natural" level found in individuals exposed to adequate sunlight as desirable.
We have just started to realize how pervasive the chemicals, nuclear fallout, air pollution, water pollution damaging marine life are that affect mankind. Overpopulation will only
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thismake conditions worsen over time as resource dwindles and less favorable outcomes prevail.
I am surprised that the article does not mention one of the clearest factors influencing breast cancer risk - later first pregnancy and lower number of pregnancies. These are both features of modern developed societies.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt is feasible that use of synthetic pregnancy hormones, as used in the contraceptive pill, might be used to simulate the effects of pregnancy and thus protect against breast cancer. The benefit would have to be balanced against potential harmful effects of taking hormones.
very helpfull article, thanks a lot
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The government in their ignorance has been convinced to add the metal iron to all our foods. This is proving to be a big mistake.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Red meat, MeIQx, and dietary iron elevated the risk of invasive breast cancer, but there was no linear trend in the association except for dietary iron."
Has anyone looked into the effects of Genetically Modified Foods? Monsanto is such a major and powerful organization that people are afraid to investigate what is put into our foods (growth hormones)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisResearching epigenetic causes of breast cancer- or any similarly hormone-influenced cancers ( prostate cancer rates are pretty parallel to breast cancer rates!) has been long overdue. Epidemiological studies, e,g, Professor Colin Campbell's ground-breaking, 30 years' 'China Study' have shown that diet plays a very significant role:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe highest breast & prostate cancer rates have been in countries with the highest meat& dairy consumption!
This makes sense now: Cows are accumulating DDT from the grasses they have eaten over their lifetime, and are constantly doped with bovine growth hormones for maximum fertility rates and milk yield, 10 times more than would be natural.
We are getting this toxic cocktail with every steak and cheese we have eaten. Bon appetit!
Youthevity.com
Post a serious article and every armchair scientist spouts their pet theory based on partial understanding of something they once read somewhere. The idea behind research is that you do the work and *then* decide what the results indicate. You don't decide the results and then do the work in a way to guarantee your pet theory is supported.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI used to believe a lot of the garbage I read until I figured out that none of it was real science and most results were explained by the placebo effect.