BackgroundPrevious studies of DDT and breast cancer assessed exposure later in life when the breast may not have been vulnerable, after most DDT had been eliminated, and after DDT had been banned.ObjectivesWe investigated whether DDT exposure in young women during the period of peak DDT use predicts breast cancer.MethodsWe conducted a prospective, nested case–control study with a median time to diagnosis of 17 years using blood samples obtained from young women during 1959–1967. Subjects were members of the Child Health and Development Studies, Oakland, California, who provided blood samples 1–3 days after giving birth (mean age, 26 years). Cases (n = 129) developed breast cancer before the age of 50 years. Controls (n = 129) were matched to cases on birth year. Serum was assayed for p,p′-DDT, the active ingredient of DDT; o,p′-DDT, a low concentration contaminant; and p,p′-DDE, the most abundant p,p′-DDT metabolite.ResultsHigh levels of serum p,p′-DDT predicted a statistically significant 5-fold increased risk of breast cancer among women who were born after 1931. These women were under 14 years of age in 1945, when DDT came into widespread use, and mostly under 20 years as DDT use peaked. Women who were not exposed to p,p′-DDT before 14 years of age showed no association between p,p′-DDT and breast cancer (p = 0.02 for difference by age).ConclusionsExposure to p,p′-DDT early in life may increase breast cancer risk. Many U.S. women heavily exposed to DDT in childhood have not yet reached 50 years of age. The public health significance of DDT exposure in early life may be large.
The Western Collaborative Group Study (WCGS) is a prospective epidemiological study of 3,154 initially well men, aged 39059 years at intake in 1960-61, who were employed in ten participating companies in California. Clinical coronary heart disease (CHD) occurred in 257 men during a follow-up period of eight and one-half years. Coronary heart disease risk is predicted using the additive multiple logistic model with the risk factors: age, cholesterol, systolic blood pressure, hematocrit, ECG status, smoking at intake, and relative body weight. The predicted individual CHS risk levels, using the logistic results derived from the WCGS data, are highly correlated with predicted risk levels using a Framington study (FS) equation for these same risk factors with 12-year follow-up. The observed number of CHS events in the WCGS is not significantly different from the expected number of events derived from the FS logistic equation, after correction of length of follow-up. Multiple logistic analysis of the direct association between CHD incidence and behavior pattern gives an approximate relative risk of 1.9 (P = 0.0006) and 2.1 (P = 0.0015) for Type A compared to Type B men aged 39-49 and 50-59 years, respectively. It is estimated that removal of the excess risk associated with Type A behavior would correspond to a 31% (standard error = 6.6%) reduction of coronary heart disease incidence in the Western Collaborative Group Study population.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.