Improving Breast Health by Integrating Beans into Western-Style Diets in Early Life

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Zhenhua Liu

Breast cancer is the most common cancer among females in the United States. With over 310,000 new cases in 2024 alone, the number of new cases continues to rise, especially among younger females. Alarmingly, despite advances in screening and treatment, about half of the females who die from breast cancer in the U.S. today are under the age of 45. 

So why have breast cancer rates in younger females increased so dramatically over the past 50 years? 

Nutrition and cancer prevention specialist Zhenhua Liu hypothesizes that, in part, the Western-style diet (WSD) plays a role in this trend – especially during the key developmental years of childhood and adolescence. 

Now, thanks to a four-year, $630,393 grant from the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), Liu and an interdisciplinary research team will examine whether improving early-life nutrition can help prevent breast cancer later on. 

“No one really knows why we’ve had such an increasing incidence of breast cancer, especially emerging young-onset breast cancer,” says Liu. “But this project will help us to address this knowledge gap by investigating the influence of nutrition during the vulnerable but understudied window of childhood and adolescence on the mammary microenvironment later in life.”

The early years of life – from childhood through adolescence – are a critical time for setting the foundation for lifelong health, notes Liu. However, national dietary data shows that most children and teens in the U.S. have poor diets, scoring below 55 out of 100 on the Healthy Eating Index.

“In our early studies using animal models, we found that eating a high-fat diet during youth led to long-lasting changes in the gut microbiome and in breast tissue--changes that may increase the risk of developing breast cancer later in life,” says Liu. “These findings suggest that the rise in breast cancer among young females may be linked, at least in part, to the increasing popularity of Western-style diets, which are often high in fat and low in fiber and certain essential micronutrients.”

Enter the bean – a powerful, nutrient-rich food that contains fiber, protein, and other important micronutrients that many people in Western countries don't get enough of. As beans provide a unique dietary composition rich in various nutrients often lacking in WSD, they can serve as excellent complementary wholefoods to enhance the quality of WSD and promote breast health.

“However, our current knowledge is still limited regarding the mechanisms, effectiveness, and practical strategies to incorporate these beans into WSD, and thereby to improve its quality and promote breast health,” says Liu. 

To aid in the project, Liu assembled a team of co-investigators that include food microbiology specialist Matthew D. Moore (Associate Professor, Department of Food Science); maternal and child nutrition expert Lindiwe Sibeko (Professor and Chair, Department of Nutrition), and immunology and cancer biology expert Leonid Pobezinsky (Associate Professor, Department of Veterinary and Animal Sciences).

The researchers will expand on their preliminary animal studies to first test their hypothesis that early-life WSD exacerbates, whereas the addition of beans improves, breast health. They will then test the hypothesis that the incorporation of beans into the WSD during early life attenuates the development of young-onset breast cancer in the middle adulthood. Lastly, the role of gut microbiome in mediating the connection between early-life intake of beans and breast health - particularly the risk of early-onset breast cancer - will be investigated.

Moore and his laboratory team will help in the development and execution of assays related to gut microbiome studies. Sibeko will ensure that the research outcomes have a direct impact on early-life nutrition and women’s breast health in real-world settings; while Pobezinsky will examine how early-life nutrition modifies the mammary microenvironment, especially at the molecular immunology level. Liu will lead the project's overall experimental implementation, conduct the data analysis, and report on the scientific findings.

By exploring these questions, the researchers hope to develop practical, science-based dietary strategies to help reduce the risk of breast cancer--starting with better nutrition in the early years of life.

“We hope this study will give us the means to effectively reduce the escalating rate of emerging young-onset breast cancer,” says Liu.