Dietary Cadmium Intake and Risk of Breast, Endometrial and Ovarian Cancer in Danish Postmenopausal Women: A Prospective Cohort Study

There is no author summary for this article yet. Authors can add summaries to their articles on ScienceOpen to make them more accessible to a non-specialist audience.

Abstract

Purpose

Cadmium is a human lung carcinogen and possesses estrogen-like activity. This combination of carcinogenic and estrogenic activity makes cadmium a contaminant of high concern for hormone-related cancers. Diet and smoking are the main sources of cadmium exposure. The aim of this study was to investigate the association between dietary cadmium intake and risk of breast, endometrial and ovarian cancer in Danish postmenopausal woman.

Methods

We estimated dietary cadmium intake in the Diet, Cancer and Health cohort at enrolment 1993-97. The estimates were based on food frequency questionnaires and cadmium contents in all foods. Among 23,815 postmenopausal women we identified 1390 breast, 192 endometrial, and 146 ovarian cancer cases from enrolment through December 31, 2010 using the Danish Cancer Registry. Cox regression was used to analyse the association between dietary cadmium intake and cancer risk.

Results

Mean dietary cadmium intake was 14 µg/day. Cadmium was not associated with breast cancer, incidence rate ratio (IRR) = 0.99, 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.87–1.13 per 10 µg higher dietary cadmium intake/day; endometrial cancer, IRR = 1.08, 95% CI: 0.76–1.53; or ovarian cancer, IRR = 1.15, 95% CI: 0.78–1.70. We found a positive association between cadmium and endometrial cancer for the women with BMI<25 (IRR = 1.50, 95% CI: 0.94–2.39), whereas an inverse association was seen for the women with BMI≥25 (IRR = 0.69, 95% CI: 0.42–1.12); p value for interaction = 0.02.

Conclusions

Our study does not indicate that our estimated dietary cadmium intake is associated with hormone-related cancers in women.

Related collections

Most cited references 26

Record: found
Abstract: found
Article: not found

Current status of cadmium as an environmental health problem.

Lars Järup, Agneta Åkesson (2009)

Cadmium is a toxic metal occurring in the environment naturally and as a pollutant emanating from industrial and agricultural sources. Food is the main source of cadmium intake in the non-smoking population. The bioavailability, retention and toxicity are affected by several factors including nutritional status such as low iron status. Cadmium is efficiently retained in the kidney (half-time 10-30 years) and the concentration is proportional to that in urine (U-Cd). Cadmium is nephrotoxic, initially causing kidney tubular damage. Cadmium can also cause bone damage, either via a direct effect on bone tissue or indirectly as a result of renal dysfunction. After prolonged and/or high exposure the tubular injury may progress to glomerular damage with decreased glomerular filtration rate, and eventually to renal failure. Furthermore, recent data also suggest increased cancer risks and increased mortality in environmentally exposed populations. Dose-response assessment using a variety of early markers of kidney damage has identified U-Cd points of departure for early kidney effects between 0.5 and 3 microg Cd/g creatinine, similar to the points of departure for effects on bone. It can be anticipated that a considerable proportion of the non-smoking adult population has urinary cadmium concentrations of 0.5 microg/g creatinine or higher in non-exposed areas. For smokers this proportion is considerably higher. This implies no margin of safety between the point of departure and the exposure levels in the general population. Therefore, measures should be put in place to reduce exposure to a minimum, and the tolerably daily intake should be set in accordance with recent findings.

0 comments Cited 473 times – based on 0 reviews      Review now

Bookmark

Record: found
Abstract: found
Article: not found

Cadmium carcinogenesis.

Michael Waalkes (2003)

Cadmium is a heavy metal of considerable environmental and occupational concern. Cadmium compounds are classified as human carcinogens by several regulatory agencies. The most convincing data that cadmium is carcinogenic in humans comes from studies indicating occupational cadmium exposure is associated with lung cancer. Cadmium exposure has also been linked to human prostate and renal cancer, although this linkage is weaker than for lung cancer. Other target sites of cadmium carcinogenesis in humans, such as liver, pancreas and stomach, are considered equivocal. In animals, cadmium effectively induces cancers at multiple sites and by various routes. Cadmium inhalation in rats induces pulmonary adenocarcinomas, in accord with its role in human lung cancer. Cadmium can induce tumors and/or preneoplastic lesions within the rat prostate after ingestion or injection. At relatively high doses, cadmium induces benign testicular tumors in rats, but these appear to be due to early toxic lesions and loss of testicular function, rather than from a specific carcinogenic effect of cadmium. Like many other metals, cadmium salts will induce mesenchymal tumors at the site of subcutaneous (s.c.) or intramuscular (i.m.) injections, but the human relevance of these is dubious. Other targets of cadmium in rodents include the liver, adrenal, pancreas, pituitary, and hematopoietic system. With the exception of testicular tumors in rodents, the mechanisms of cadmium carcinogenesis are poorly defined. Cadmium can cause any number of molecular lesions that would be relevant to oncogenesis in various cellular model systems. Most studies indicate cadmium is poorly mutagenic and probably acts through indirect or epigenetic mechanisms, potentially including aberrant activation of oncogenes and suppression of apoptosis.

0 comments Cited 163 times – based on 0 reviews      Review now

Bookmark

Record: found
Abstract: found
Article: not found

Etiology of hormone receptor-defined breast cancer: a systematic review of the literature.

Jennifer H Fergenbaum, Michelle Althuis, Louise Brinton … (2004)

Breast cancers classified by estrogen receptor (ER) and/or progesterone receptor (PR) expression have different clinical, pathologic, and molecular features. We examined existing evidence from the epidemiologic literature as to whether breast cancers stratified by hormone receptor status are also etiologically distinct diseases. Despite limited statistical power and nonstandardized receptor assays, in aggregate, the critically evaluated studies (n = 31) suggest that the etiology of hormone receptor-defined breast cancers may be heterogeneous. Reproduction-related exposures tended to be associated with increased risk of ER-positive but not ER-negative tumors. Nulliparity and delayed childbearing were more consistently associated with increased cancer risk for ER-positive than ER-negative tumors, and early menarche was more consistently associated with ER-positive/PR-positive than ER-negative/PR-negative tumors. Postmenopausal obesity was also more consistently associated with increased risk of hormone receptor-positive than hormone receptor-negative tumors, possibly reflecting increased estrogen synthesis in adipose stores and greater bioavailability. Published data are insufficient to suggest that exogenous estrogen use (oral contraceptives or hormone replacement therapy) increase risk of hormone-sensitive tumors. Risks associated with breast-feeding, alcohol consumption, cigarette smoking, family history of breast cancer, or premenopausal obesity did not differ by receptor status. Large population-based studies of determinants of hormone receptor-defined breast cancers defined using state-of-the-art quantitative immunostaining methods are needed to clarify the role of ER/PR expression in breast cancer etiology.

0 comments Cited 126 times – based on 0 reviews      Review now

Bookmark

All references

Author and article information

Contributors

Chunyan He: Role: Editor

Journal

Journal ID (nlm-ta): PLoS One

Journal ID (iso-abbrev): PLoS ONE

Journal ID (publisher-id): plos

Journal ID (pmc): plosone

Title: PLoS ONE

Publisher: Public Library of Science (San Francisco, USA )

ISSN (Electronic): 1932-6203

Publication date Collection: 2014

Publication date (Electronic): 25 June 2014

Volume: 9

Issue: 6

Electronic Location Identifier: e100815

Affiliations

[1 ]Danish Cancer Society Research Center, Copenhagen, Denmark

[2 ]Department of Preventive Medicine and Graduate Program in Public Health, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, New York, United States of America

[3 ]Family and Community Medicine, University of Missouri, Columbia, Montana, United States of America

Indiana University, United States of America

Author notes

* E-mail: kirsthor@ 123456cancer.dk

Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Conceived and designed the experiments: KTE ORN MS JRM JAM. Performed the experiments: JH KTE. Analyzed the data: JH KTE. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: AT JH. Wrote the paper: KTE ORN MS JRM JAM AT JH.

Article

Publisher ID: PONE-D-14-03529

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0100815

PMC ID: 4071014

PubMed ID: 24963789

SO-VID: 85874dbf-30a9-4779-9161-a95e53c53b6c

License:

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

History

Date received : 23 January 2014

Date accepted : 30 May 2014

Page count

Pages: 8

Funding

This work was supported by research grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) (grant no.: R01ES019209) and from the Danish Cancer Society (grant no: R20A93010S2). The funders had no role in the design of the study, data collection, interpretation of results, or writing of the manuscript.

Dietary Cadmium Intake and Risk of Breast, Endometrial and Ovarian Cancer in Danish Postmenopausal Women: A Prospective Cohort Study

Read this article at

Abstract

Purpose

Methods

Results

Conclusions

Related collections

PLOS Climate

Most cited references 26

Current status of cadmium as an environmental health problem.

Cadmium carcinogenesis.

Etiology of hormone receptor-defined breast cancer: a systematic review of the literature.

Author and article information

Contributors

Journal

Affiliations

Author notes

Article

History

Page count

Funding

Categories

Comments

Comment on this article

Similar content 325

Cited by 26