Mexico.- In Mexico it is estimated that between 10 and 12 women die daily from breast cancer; women who are obese and overweight are at increased risk as adipose tissue helps the development of the disease given its metabolic and hormonal functioning. Alejandro Zentella Dehesa, of UNAM Biomedical Research Institute (IIBm) indicated that breast cancer remains the most common cause of death in working-age women although the highest incidence occurs at age 58, it is becoming more common find patients from 35 or 45.
The specialist said that in Mexico 60 percent of women are overweight or obese and to which are added factors such as smoking, alcohol consumption and exposure to female hormones: estrogens,” the UNAM specialist said. Early detection, critical
The academic in the Department of Genomic Medicine and Environmental Toxicology at IIBm stated that the key to fighting breast cancer is its early detection, but currently 60 percent of patients are presentto medical services with advanced diseases and mortality is between 60 and 80 percent, in five years.
From the age of 40 all women should have a mastography per year and do so, preferably, in a cancer center that has doctors trained to interpret the studies, recommended Zentella Dehesa.” The problem is that cancer is not static; if acted immediately after it is detected, the chances of healing increase, but if it is not addressed, it quickly moves to another stage.” In Search of a Cure
Together with Eduardo García García and Juan Pablo Méndez Blanco, the Salvador Zubirán National Institute of Medical Sciences and Nutrition and the Faculty of Medicine (FM), respectively, Zentella Dehesa participates in a research protocol with women with obesity, who are given a medicine that helps control glucose and weight (metmorphin), and that in some of them has reduced the risk of developing breast cancer.
We take blood samples before and after giving them the drug and have found that it causes an activity capable of killing cancer cells in vitro
This second phase of the protocol began three years ago and has resources from the Conacyt Frontiers of Science program. It is currently sought to determine which components of the serum kill tumor cells to find a marker and be applied massively in a clinical laboratory. The IIBm researcher pointed out that in the absence of a cure it is necessary to insist on prevention, change lifestyle, eat a healthy diet, exercise and control weight. “It’s important and more important in women, because they control diets in homes and set eating patterns.” To do this they must be advised by a family doctor.” If we were to do this nationally, in 10 years we could get the incidence of breast cancer to decrease, because we would be controlling the risk elements,” Zentella Dehesa concluded.
