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News release: NationalOctober 14, 2003 For more information, call: Kaiser Permanente research: Studying breast cancer and environment, starting before puberty 400 girls will be followed, environmental and behavioral factors tracked Oakland, CA – Kaiser Permanente’s Division of Research will lead one of two California-based projects studying environmental and behavioral factors that may influence breast cancer growth and when those factors act during a woman’s lifespan. The projects are being conducted as part of the newly-established Bay Area Breast Cancer and the Environment Research Center (BABCERC), centered at UCSF and funded by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and the National Cancer Institute. In addition to Kaiser Permanente the center’s contributiors will include the Marin Breast Cancer Watch, California Department of Health Services and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL). Lawrence H. Kushi, ScD, Associate Director of Etiology and Prevention at Kaiser Permanente’s Division of Research will lead one project with a team from the California State Department of Health and LBNL. Dr. Kushi’s project will study approximately four hundred girls aged 7 or 8, recruited from Kaiser Permanente’s Northern California health plan, during their approach to and transitions through puberty. Data will be collected during a six-year follow-up period from questionnaires, physical examinations, and biospecimens. Dr. Kushi and his team will analyze possible links between environmental and lifestyle factors and mammary development, including potential susceptibility to elements in the environment influenced by genetic vulnerability. Northern California’s Marin County is known to have one of the highest rates of breast cancer in the United States, and some experts have theorized that unknown carcinogens in the environment could be to blame. Other chemicals may mimic the effects of estrogen on the body. Estrogen can stimulate the growth of breast cancer cells. Chemicals that mimic its effects may also affect the normal hormonal development of young girls. “What we hope to learn through this study,” says co-investigator Barbara Sternfeld, MD, PhD, “is which factors, exactly, might be causing an increased risk of breast cancer, and what the mechanism is that makes that happen. Ultimately, we’d like to give women the knowledge to decrease their own risk of ever having breast cancer as well as their daughters’ risk.” Kaiser Permanente is America’s leading integrated health care program. Founded in 1945, it is a not-for-profit, multi-specialty, group-practice prepayment program serving the health care needs of 8.4 million members in 9 states and the District of Columbia with headquarters in Oakland, Calif. Kaiser Permanente has research centers in 8 regions around the United States and publication of KP investigators’ work has appeared in the Journal of the American Medical Association, the New England Journal of Medicine, Pediatrics, the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, and other peer-reviewed medical journals.
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