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Postpartum Female Preference for Cooler Temperatures Linked to Brain Changes

The AHA! Team — Mon, 11 Aug 2025 05:35:50 +0000

Baylor College of Medicine via EurekAlert! – Mothers experience major metabolic adaptations during pregnancy and lactation to support the development and growth of the new life. Although many metabolic changes have been studied, body temperature regulation and environmental temperature preference during and after pregnancy remain poorly understood. Researchers at Baylor College of Medicine and collaborating institutions show in the journal Molecular Metabolism that postpartum female mice develop new environmental temperature preferences and reveal brain changes mediating these changes. Humans and mice body temperature “In both humans and mice, body temperature increases during early pregnancy, drops to normal temperature during late pregnancy and then goes up again during lactation,” said co-corresponding author Dr. Chunmei Wang, assistant professor of pediatrics at USDA/ARS Children’s Nutrition Research Center at Baylor. In this study, Wang and her colleagues investigated what changes occurred in the brain that mediated the new temperature preference. “We worked with mice and found that female mice prefer a cooler environment starting from late pregnancy and persisting in long-term postpartum,” Wang said. “For more than four weeks post-weaning female mice had a lower body temperature and preferred cooler environments; they lost their typical preference for warm environments (30 °C/86 °F) but still avoided cold environments (15 °C/59 °F).” To identify the biological underpinnings of these changes, the researchers studied the preoptic area (POA), a brain region important for sensing and regulating body temperature. “We discovered that the change in temperature preference in postpartum female mice was associated with a significant decrease in a particular group of neurons, estrogen receptor alpha (ERα)-expressing neurons in the preoptic area of the brain (ERαPOA neurons),” Wang said. Supporting this finding, the researchers found that virgin females in which the estrogen receptor alpha had been deleted in ERαPOA neurons also preferred lower temperatures and avoided warmer locations, mimicking postpartum females. Looking closely into the ERαPOA neurons, the researchers found that these neurons vary in their ability to sense warm or cold temperatures – one group of ERαPOA neurons can directly respond to warmth, while another group responds to cooler temperatures. “Interestingly, compared to female mice that had not been pregnant, ERαPOA neurons of postpartum females had reduced response to warmth and an enhanced response to cold,” Wang said. Together, the results support that the ability of ERαPOA neurons to sense warmth and cold is regulated by reproductive experience and leads to changes in temperature preferences that alter the animal’s warmth-seeking behavior. Currently, the researchers are exploring the function of each group of ERαPOA neurons on the regulation body temperature and thermal preference. Other contributors to this work include Nan Zhang, Meng Yu, Qianru Zhao, Bing Feng, Yue Deng, Jonathan C. Bean, Qingzhuo Liu, Benjamin P. Eappen, Yang He, Kristine M. Conde, Hailan Liu, Yongjie Yang, Longlong Tu, Mengjie Wang, Yongxiang Li, Na Yin, Hesong Liu, Junying Han, Darah Ave Threat, Nathan Xu, Taylor Smiley, Pingwen Xu, Lulu Chen and co-corresponding authors Tianshu Zeng and Yanlin He. The authors are affiliated with one or more of the following institutions: Baylor College of Medicine, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Hubei Branch of National Center for Clinical Medical Research of Metabolic Diseases, Louisiana State University, South-central Minzu University and the University of Illinois. This work was supported by grants from the USDA/CRIS (3092-51000-062-04(B)S), Pennington Biomedical Research Center institutional funding and the National Natural Science Foundation of China. ### Journal Molecular Metabolism DOI 10.1016/j.molmet.2025.102108 To read the original article click here.

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Eating THESE Seeds May Reduce Breast Cancer Mortality, Study Shows

AHA Publisher — Thu, 21 Oct 2021 07:00:47 +0000

Stephanie Woods via NaturalHealth365 – Breast cancer is the second most common cancer in women in the United States, coming just behind skin cancer. It also falls just behind lung cancer as the second leading cause of death in women. An estimated 1 in 8 women will be diagnosed with breast cancer in their lifetime. And, while – conventionally speaking – doctors promote mammograms as a “helpful” diagnostic tools to detect the presence of tumors, they do nothing to decrease the risk of developing breast cancer. Thankfully, nature provided various plants that contain compounds with cancer-fighting properties. One such example is flaxseed, which according to studies may reduce the mortality rate by as much as 70%. High Concentrations of Lignans Make Flaxseed a Cancer-Fighting Superfood Flaxseed is chock full of phytoestrogens called lignans. These plant estrogens act as antioxidants in the body. You can find lignans in many common foods: Beans Pumpkin seeds Broccoli Sesame seeds Grains like oats, wheat, barley, and rye Sunflower seeds While these are all great sources, flaxseed tops them all with amounts that are much, much higher. And it seems that a high concentration of lignans is precisely what is needed when fighting breast cancer. Impressive Research Shows Flaxseed Reduces Tumor Growth A review of research on flaxseed and breast cancer from the University of Toronto highlights some exciting discoveries that could mean very good news for cancer patients. Observational studies showed a reduced breast cancer risk (primarily among postmenopausal women) in connection with the intake of flaxseed, urinary excretion, or serum levels. A 33% to 70% reduction in breast cancer mortality was attributed to lignans. Most animal studies maintaining a diet that is 2.5% to 10% flaxseed, flaxseed oil, or the equivalent amount of lignans reduces the growth of tumors. Clinical trials found that tumor growth in breast cancer patients was reduced after patients were given 25 grams of flaxseed a day for 32 days. That’s not all! Flaxseed boosts brain health as well which helps with mental health issues like depression and anxiety. Flaxseed Protects Women From Breast Cancer in MULTIPLE Ways Science has identified several ways that flaxseed can help protect women from breast cancer: It decreases the proliferation of tumor cells Lignans block the blood supply to the tumor It lowers the risk of metastasis Lignans block estrogen receptors and lower excess estrogen production Study after study shows that flaxseed is not only a powerful cancer fighter, but it can also reduce your risk of cancer. Best of all, it is something you can start adding to your diet today. Here Is How to Incorporate Flaxseeds Into Your Diet Most of the studies found that 2.5 tablespoons of flaxseed, just 25 grams, is effective in fighting cancer. Postmenopausal women can safely have up to 40 grams a day. But how do you do it? Flaxseed isn’t that tasty on its own, but you can still get the benefits by adding it to foods you are already eating such as: Oatmeal Mashed sweet potato Smoothies Salad Yogurt Cereal Soups Muffins Bread Naturally, you should look for organic brown or golden flaxseeds to ensure purity and avoid varieties that may be polluted with agrochemicals. Grinding your flaxseed will make it easier to incorporate into your foods, but when it is ground it does go rancid fairly quickly. You want to grind about a week’s worth of flaxseed at a time and store it in the refrigerator or freezer in an airtight container. It is also recommended that you work up to at least 2 tablespoons but give your body time to get used to all the fiber by incremental increases. Making this small change to your diet could save your life. Sources for this article include: Cancer.org GreenMedInfo.com AICR.org To read the original article click here.

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Studies Suggest a Fasting Diet Could Boost Breast Cancer Therapy

AHA Publisher — Fri, 24 Jul 2020 07:00:13 +0000

University of Southern California via EurekAlert – A USC-led team of scientists has found that a fasting-mimicking diet combined with hormone therapy has the potential to help treat breast cancer, according to newly published animal studies and small clinical trials in humans. In studies on mice and in two small breast cancer clinical trials, researchers at USC and the IFOM Cancer Institute in Milan — in collaboration with the University of Genova — found that the fasting-mimicking diet reduces blood insulin, insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF1) and leptin. In mice, these effects appear to increase the power of the cancer hormone drugs tamoxifen and fulvestrant and delay any resistance to them. The results from 36 women treated with the hormone therapy and fasting-mimicking diet are promising, but researchers say it is still too early to determine whether the effects will be confirmed in large-scale clinical trials. The research was published in the journal Nature. “Our new study suggests that a fasting-mimicking diet together with endocrine therapy for breast cancer has the potential to not only shrink tumors but also reverse resistant tumors in mice,” said Valter Longo, the study’s co-senior author and the director of the Longevity Institute at the USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology and professor of biological sciences at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences. “We have data that for the first time suggests that a fasting-mimicking diet works by changing at least three different factors: IGF1, leptin and insulin.” The researchers say the two small clinical trials are feasibility studies that showed promising results, but they are in no way conclusive. They believe the results support further clinical studies of a fasting-mimicking diet used in combination with endocrine therapy in hormone-receptor-positive breast cancer. The scientists also contributed to a recent clinical study of 129 breast cancer patients conducted with the University of Leiden. The results, published last month in Nature Communications, appeared to show increased efficacy of chemotherapy in patients receiving a combination of chemotherapy and a fasting-mimicking diet. In the two new small clinical trials — one of which was directed by the study co-corresponding author Alessio Nencioni — patients with hormone-receptor-positive breast cancer receiving estrogen therapy along with cycles of a fasting-mimicking diet seemed to experience metabolic changes similar to those observed in mice. These changes included a reduction in insulin, leptin and IGF1 levels, with the last two remaining low for extended periods. In mice, these long-lasting effects are associated with long-term anti-cancer activity, so further studies in humans is needed. “Some patients followed monthly cycles of the fasting-mimicking diet for almost two years without any problems, suggesting that it is a well-tolerated intervention,” Nencioni said. “We hope this means that this nutritional program that mimics fasting could one day represent a weapon to better fight cancer in patients receiving hormone therapy without serious side effects.” “The results in mice are very promising. And the early clinical results show potential as well, but now we need to see it work in a 300- to 400-patient trial,” Longo explained. The data also suggest that in mice, the fasting-mimicking diet appears to prevent tamoxifen-induced endometrial hyperplasia, a condition in which the endometrium (or the lining of the uterus) becomes abnormally thick. The study authors believe this potential use of the fasting diet should be explored further, given the prevalence of this side effect of tamoxifen and the limited options for preventing it. Approximately 80% of all breast cancers express estrogen and/or progesterone receptors. The most common forms of hormone therapy for these breast cancers work by blocking hormones from attaching to receptors on cancer cells or by decreasing the body’s hormone production. Endocrine therapy is frequently effective in these hormone-receptor-positive tumors, but the long-term benefits are often hindered by treatment resistance. Several clinical trials, including one at USC on breast cancer and prostate patients, are now investigating the effects of the fasting-mimicking diets in combination with different cancer-fighting drugs. “I like to call it the nontoxic wildcard for cancer treatment,” Longo said. “These clinical studies we have just published — together with the many animal studies published in the past 12 years — suggest that cycles of the fasting-mimicking diet has the potential to make standard therapy more effective against different cancers, each time by changing a different factor or nutrient important for cancer cell survival.” To read the original article click here.

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What Does Drinking Soy Milk Do to Hormone Levels?

AHA Publisher — Thu, 23 Jul 2020 07:00:40 +0000

Michael Greger M.D. FACLM via Nutrition Facts – The vast majority of breast cancers start out hormone-dependent, where estradiol, the primary human estrogen, “plays a crucial role in their breast cancer development and progression.” That’s one of the reasons why soy food consumption appears so protective against breast cancer: Soy phytoestrogens, like genistein, act as estrogen-blockers and block the binding of estrogens, such as estradiol, to breast cancer cells, as you can see at 0:24 in my video How to Block Breast Cancer’s Estrogen-Producing Enzymes. Wait a second. The majority of breast cancers occur after menopause when the ovaries have stopped producing estrogen. What’s the point of eating estrogen-blockers if there’s no estrogen to block? It turns out that breast cancer tumors produce their own estrogen from scratch to fuel their own growth. As you can see at 1:03 in my video, “estrogens may be formed in breast tumors by two pathways, namely the aromatase pathway and sulfatase pathway.” The breast cancer takes cholesterol and produces its own estrogen using either the aromatase enzyme or two hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase enzymes. So, there are two ways to stop breast cancer. One is to use anti-estrogens—that is, estrogen-blockers—like the soy phytoestrogens or the anti-estrogen drug tamoxifen. “However, another way to block estradiol is by using anti-enzymes” to prevent the breast cancer from making all the estrogen in the first place. And, indeed, there are a variety of anti-aromatase drugs in current use. In fact, inhibiting the estrogen production has been shown to be more effective than just trying to block the effects of the estrogen, “suggesting that the inhibition of estrogen synthesis is clinically very important for the treatment of estrogen-dependent breast cancer.” It turns out that soy phytoestrogens can do both. Using ovary cells taken from women undergoing in vitro fertilization, soy phytoestrogens were found to reduce the expression of the aromatase enzyme. What about in breast cancer cells, though? This occurred in breast cancer cells, too, and not only was aromatase activity suppressed, but that of the other estrogen-producing enzyme, as well. But this was in a petri dish. Does soy also suppress estrogen production in people? Well, as you can see at 2:34 in my video, circulating estrogen levels appear significantly lower in Japanese women than Caucasian American women, and Japan does have the highest per-capita soy food consumption, but you can’t know it’s the soy until you put it to the test. Japanese women were randomized to add soy milk to their diet or not for a few months. Estrogen levels successfully dropped about a quarter in the soy milk supplemented group. Interestingly, as you can see at 3:04 in my video, when the researchers tried the same experiment in men, they got similar results: a significant drop in female hormone levels, with no change in testosterone levels. These results, though, are in Japanese men and women who were already consuming soy in their baseline diet. So, the study was really just looking at higher versus lower soy intake. What happens if you give soy milk to women in Texas? As you can see at 3:29 in my video, circulating estrogen levels were cut in half. Since increased estrogen levels are “markers for high risk for breast cancer,” the effectiveness of soy in reducing estrogen levels may help explain why Chinese and Japanese women have such low rates of breast cancer. What’s truly remarkable is that estrogen levels stayed down for a month or two even after the subjects stopped drinking soy milk, which suggests you don’t have to consume soy every day to have the cancer protective benefit. Wait, soy protects against breast cancer? Yes, in study after study after study—and even in women at high risk. Watch my video BRCA Breast Cancer Genes and Soy for the full story. What about if you already have breast cancer? In that case, see Is Soy Healthy for Breast Cancer Survivors? And what about GMO soy? Get the facts in GMO Soy and Breast Cancer. Okay, then, Who Shouldn’t Eat Soy? Watch my video and find out. To read the original article click here. For more article from Dr. Greger click here.

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DNA Damage to Breast Cells from Chemicals in Some Cosmetics and Sunscreens

AHA Publisher — Sun, 26 Jan 2020 08:00:55 +0000

University of Massachusetts Amherst via Science Daily – A new approach to studying the effects of two common chemicals used in cosmetics and sunscreens found they can cause DNA damage in breast cells at surprisingly low concentrations, while the same dose did not harm cells without estrogen receptors. To read the original article and learn more about how chemicals damage breast cells, click here.

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