Introduction. Breast cancer is the most frequently diagnosed malignancy in women, and comorbidities like hypertension and obesity diminish their quality of life and negatively affect their response to chemotherapy. Furthermore, inulin supplementation is associated with the reduction of cardiovascular diseases (CVD) risk. Objective. To determine whether inulin supplementation prevents the elevation of blood pressure in women with breast cancer undergoing neoadjuvant therapy with cyclophosphamide and doxorubicin. Methods. This was a randomized, double-blind placebo controlled trial which included women with early-stage breast cancer undergoing neoadjuvant therapy (n=38). Patients were randomly assigned to participate in two different groups to receive either 15 g of inulin or 15 g of placebo (maltodextrin) for 21 days. Body composition and blood pressure were evaluated before and after the supplementation period. Results. Women in the inulin group showed a lower systolic blood pressure (SBP) after the supplementation (-4.21 mmHg, p<0.001). However, SBP increased in the placebo supplemented group. Diastolic blood pressure (DBP) nonsignificantly decreased in the inulin group. Inulin supplementation also increased BMI (p<0.001) but reduced BFP (p=0.288). Furthermore, confounding variables, such as BMI, baseline fasting glucose, age, menopause status, vomiting, constipation, and chronic medication did not have a statistical influence over the inulin effect on SBP. Conclusion. Inulin supplementation reduces SBP and prevents increases in DBP in women with breast cancer. This could be an innovative nutraceutical approach to prevent hypertension present in women with this type of cancer at an early stage and may improve the quality of life of the patients and their prognostic development through chemotherapy. Trial Registration Number. This trial is registered with ACTRN12616001532493.

Phthalates and bisphenols are ubiquitous environmental pollutants with the ability to perturb different systems. Specifically, they can alter the endocrine system, and this is why they are also known as endocrine-disrupting compounds (EDCs). Interestingly, they are related to the development and progression of breast cancer (BC), but the threshold concentrations at which they trigger that are not well established. Objectives: The aim of this study was to compare the concentration measures of parent EDCs in three groups of women (without BC, with BC, and BC survivors) from two urban populations in Mexico, to establish a possible association between EDCs and this disease. We consider the measure of the parent compounds would reflect the individual’s exposure. Methods: The levels of di-ethyl-hexyl-phthalate (DEHP), butyl-benzyl-phthalate (BBP), di-n-butyl phthalate (DBP) and di-ethyl-phthalate (DEP), bisphenol A (BPA) and bisphenol S (BPS) were determined by gas chromatograph-mass spectrometry in 102 subjects, including 37 women without any pathological disease, 46 patients with BC and 19 women survivals of BC of Mexico and Toluca City. Results: All phthalates were detected in 100% of women, two of them were significantly higher in patients with different BC subtypes in Mexico City. Differential increases were observed mainly in the serum concentration of phthalates in women with BC compared to women without disease between Mexico and Toluca City. In addition, when performing an analysis of the concentrations of phthalates by molecular type of BC, DEP and BBP were found mainly in aggressive and poorly differentiated types of BC. It should be noted that female BC survivors treated with anti-hormonal therapy showed lower levels of BBP than patients with BC. BPA and BPS were found in most samples from Mexico City. However, BPS was undetectable in women from Toluca City. Discussion: The results of our study support the hypothesis of a positive association between exposure to phthalates and BC incidence.

Breast cancer (BC) can appear with comorbidities like obesity and sarcopenia; however, it is not completely clear how they are related. The excessive adipose tissue can secret inflammatory cytokines and alter body metabolism, energy expenditure and cell function. Interestingly, a novel approach to evaluate body composition and cell membrane functionality by electrical bioimpedance is the measurement of the Phase Angle (PA), which is reduced in the presence of inflammation. The hypothesis of this study was that women with BC have higher fat mass as well as a lower PA and metabolism than women without cancer. We conducted a cross‐sectional study that included women 28‐74 years old (n=70), there were two groups, one had women with BC diagnosis (n=39) and one without it (n=31). Body composition was evaluated using 5 frequencies with a BiodyXPERT ZMII equipment. Blood glucose and lipids were also measured. Dietary patterns (DP) were obtained by Principal component analysis (PCA). The results (Table 1) showed that PA was not significantly different (p=0.067) between the BC (6.71 ± 0.56°) and the control (6.97 ± 0.61°) groups. However, women with BC had a significantly lower basal metabolic rate (1275.05 ± 73.71 Kcal vs 1334.57 ± 103.45 Kcal, p=0.009), energy expenditure (1843.87 ± 168.40 Kcal vs 1944.33 ± 208.31 Kcal, p=0.039) and metabolic protein mass (7.83 ± 1.21 Kg vs 8.62 ± 1.48 Kg, p=0.018) than control women. Cohen's d analysis showed these variables had a medium effect size. Crude fat mass, blood glucose, total cholesterol and triacylglycerols were not significantly different between the groups. Furthermore, we found three different DP (DP I, DP II and DP III) in both groups. Two of them were unhealthy: DP I (31.6%) was loaded heavily in fat cereals, high fat animal food, sutured fat and sweet beverages and DP II (38.0%) had a high factor load in moderate fat animal food, sweets and grain groups. Nonetheless, DP III was the healthy pattern (30.4%) and had a higher load of fruit, vegetables, cereals, very low fat animal food and dairy. Therefore, women with BC have a reduced basal metabolic rate, energy expenditure and metabolic protein mass, the last one is associated with altered skeletal muscle mass although this was not significantly altered in women with BC. Further analysis is necessary to examine the correlation between metabolic protein mass and dietary protein consumption. These parameters shall be monitored to improve BC prognosis.