Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2016 May 21;2016(1):177-9.
doi: 10.1093/emph/eov035. Print 2016.

Life history theory and breast cancer risk: methodological and theoretical challenges: Response to "Is estrogen receptor negative breast cancer risk associated with a fast life history strategy?"

Athena Aktipis  1
Affiliations

Life history theory and breast cancer risk: methodological and theoretical challenges: Response to "Is estrogen receptor negative breast cancer risk associated with a fast life history strategy?"

Athena Aktipis. Evol Med Public Health. .

Abstract

In a meta-analysis published by myself and co-authors, we report differences in the life history risk factors for estrogen receptor negative (ER-) and estrogen receptor positive (ER+) breast cancers. Our meta-analysis did not find the association of ER- breast cancer risk with fast life history characteristics that Hidaka and Boddy suggest in their response to our article. There are a number of possible explanations for the differences between their conclusions and the conclusions we drew from our meta-analysis, including limitations of our meta-analysis and methodological challenges in measuring and categorizing estrogen receptor status. These challenges, along with the association of ER+ breast cancer with slow life history characteristics, may make it challenging to find a clear signal of ER- breast cancer with fast life history characteristics, even if that relationship does exist. The contradictory results regarding breast cancer risk and life history characteristics illustrate a more general challenge in evolutionary medicine: often different sub-theories in evolutionary biology make contradictory predictions about disease risk. In this case, life history models predict that breast cancer risk should increase with faster life history characteristics, while the evolutionary mismatch hypothesis predicts that breast cancer risk should increase with delayed reproduction. Whether life history tradeoffs contribute to ER- breast cancer is still an open question, but current models and several lines of evidence suggest that it is a possibility.

Keywords: cancer susceptibility; evolutionary mismatch; life history theory; tradeoffs.

PubMed Disclaimer

References

    1. Hidaka Brandon H., Boddy Amy M. “Is estrogen receptor negative breast cancer risk associated with a fast life history strategy?.” Evolution, medicine, and public health 2016; 2016: 17–20. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Harbeck N, Rody A. Lost in translation? Estrogen receptor status and endocrine responsiveness in breast cancer. J Clin Oncol 2012; 30: 686–9. - PubMed
    1. Badve SS, Baehner FL, Gray RP. et al. Estrogen- and progesterone-receptor status in ECOG 2197: comparison of immunohistochemistry by local and central laboratories and quantitative reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction by central laboratory. J Clin Oncol 2008; 26:2473–81. - PubMed
    1. Rhodes A, Jasani B, Balaton AJ. et al. (Immunohistochemical demonstration of oestrogen and progesterone receptors: correlation of standards achieved on in house tumours with that achieved on external quality assessment material in over 150 laboratories from 26 countries. J Clin Pathol 2000; 53: 292–301. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Bauer KR, Brown M, Cress RD. et al. Descriptive analysis of estrogen receptor (ER) - negative, progesterone receptor (PR) - negative, and HER2 - negative invasive breast cancer, the so - called triple - negative phenotype. Cancer 2007; 109:1721–8. - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources