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May 1st, 2012 
FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda TUESDAY, May 1 (HealthDay News) — A blood test that spots
changes in a specific gene could reveal a woman’s risk for breast cancer
years before the disease has a chance to develop, researchers report.
British scientists analyzed blood samples from 640 breast cancer
patients and 741 women without breast cancer. The samples from the breast
cancer patients were collected an average of three years before they were
diagnosed with the disease.
The objective was to find out if the alteration of single genes by a
process called methylation could predict a woman’s breast cancer risk.
The researchers found that women with the highest level of methylation
on one area of a gene called ATM were two times more likely to develop
cancer than those with the lowest level of methylation. Methylation is a
critical process where chemicals known as “methyl groups” are added to
DNA, to make sure everything is in good working order. High levels of
methylation signal high levels of DNA trouble.
This result was particularly pronounced in blood samples taken from
women under the age of 60, Dr. James Flanagan, a Breast Cancer Campaign
scientific fellow in the department of surgery and cancer at Imperial
College London, said in a news release from the Breast Cancer
Campaign.
The study was published May 1 in the journal Cancer
Research.
Unlike previous studies that took blood from breast cancer patients
after diagnosis, these blood samples identified alterations in the ATM
gene that did not occur because of having active cancer or cancer
treatments.
The findings provide strong evidence that looking for this type of
alteration in individual genes could be used as a blood test to help
predict a woman’s chances of developing breast cancer, the researchers
said.
Used in combination with other breast cancer risk assessment tools such
as genetic testing and risk factor profiling, this blood test could help
identify women at higher risk. This early warning could be used to monitor
these patients and one day perhaps even prevent them from developing
breast cancer.
“We know that genetic variation contributes to a person’s risk of
disease. With this new study, we can now also say that epigenetic
variation, or differences in how genes are modified, also has a role,”
Flanagan said.
“We hope that this research is just the beginning of our understanding
about the epigenetic component of breast cancer risk, and in the coming
years we hope to find many more examples of genes that contribute to a
person’s risk. The challenge will be how to incorporate all of this new
information into the computer models that are currently used for
individual risk prediction,” he noted.
“So far, we have found alterations in one small region of a gene that
appear to associate with risk of disease, and so the next step with this
epigenetic research is a genome-wide approach to try and find all the
associated genes,” Flanagan explained.
More information
The American Cancer Society has more about breast cancer risk factors.
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