Investigation of the Association between Drinking Water Habits and the Occurrence of Women Breast Cancer

Breast Cancer Exposomics

We are exposed to a mixture of environmental man-made and natural xenobiotics. We experience a wide spectrum of environmental exposure in our lifetime, including the effects of xenobiotics on gametogenesis and gametes that undergo fertilization as the starting point of individual development and, moreover, in utero exposure, which can itself cause the first somatic or germline mutation necessary for breast cancer (BC) initiation. Most xenobiotics are metabolized or/and bioaccumulate and biomagnify in our tissues and cells, including breast tissues, so the xenobiotic metabolism plays an important role in BC initiation and progression. Many considerations necessitate a more valuable explanation regarding the molecular mechanisms of action of xenobiotics which act as genotoxic and epigenetic carcinogens. Thus, exposomics and the exposome concept are based on the diversity and range of exposures to physical factors, synthetic chemicals, dietary components, and psychosocial stressors, as well as their associated biologic processes and molecular pathways. Existing evidence for BC risk (BCR) suggests that food-borne chemical carcinogens, air pollution, ionizing radiation, and socioeconomic status are closely related to breast carcinogenesis. The aim of this review was to depict the dynamics and kinetics of several xenobiotics involved in BC development, emphasizing the role of new omics fields related to BC exposomics, such as environmental toxicogenomics, epigenomics and interactomics, metagenomics, nutrigenomics, nutriproteomics, and nutrimiRomics. We are mainly focused on food and nutrition, as well as endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs), involved in BC development. Overall, cell and tissue accumulation and xenobiotic metabolism or biotransformation can lead to modifications in breast tissue composition and breast cell morphology, DNA damage and genomic instability, epimutations, RNA-mediated and extracellular vesicle effects, aberrant blood methylation, stimulation of epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT), disruption of cell-cell junctions, reorganization of the actin cytoskeleton, metabolic reprogramming, and overexpression of mesenchymal genes. Moreover, the metabolism of xenobiotics into BC cells impacts almost all known carcinogenic pathways. Conversely, in our food, there are many bioactive compounds with anti-cancer potential, exerting pro-apoptotic roles, inhibiting cell cycle progression and proliferation, migration, invasion, DNA damage, and cell stress conditions. We can conclude that exposomics has a high potential to demonstrate how environmental exposure to xenobiotics acts as a double-edged sword, promoting or suppressing tumorigenesis in BC.

Chinese Dietary Indices and Glioma: New Insights of a Case-Control Study in the Chinese Population

Identifying modifiable factors in primary prevention strategies is a typical goal of glioma epidemiology. Among many glioma risk factors, diet was always considered as one. Most of the relevant studies thus far were concentrated on the West. It was crucial to investigate the connection between the Chinese diet and gliomas given the stark variations between western and eastern diets. A food frequency questionnaire including 114 items was used to investigate the food intake of the study subjects. The Chinese Dietary Quality Index (CDQI), the Chinese Dietary Balance Index (CDBI), the Dietary Antioxidant Index (DAI), the Dietary Inflammation Index (DII), and the Chinese Healthy Eating Index (CHEI) were calculated based on the data provided by the food frequency questionnaire to evaluate dietary quality, dietary balance, dietary antioxidants, dietary inflammation and adherence to the Chinese dietary guidelines in 506 glioma patients and 506 controls, respectively. After adjusting covariates, CHEI (OR = 0.90, 95% CI: 0.88-0.93) and DAI (OR = 0.61, 95% CI: 0.54-0.70) were correlated to a reduced glioma risk, and CDBI-based undernutrition (OR = 1.08, 95% CI: 1.06-1.12) and overnutrition (OR = 1.14, 95% CI: 1.09-1.20) and DII (OR = 2.20, 95% CI: 1.81-2.68) were correlated to an elevated glioma risk. Moreover, restrictive cubic spline analysis showed that there were significant nonlinear dose-response relationships between CHEI, CDBI, DAI, DII, and glioma. Therefore, adhering to the Chinese dietary guidelines was connected with a lower glioma risk, and undernutrition and overnutrition in the Chinese diet were associated with an increased risk of glioma.

Omics-Based Investigations of Breast Cancer

Breast cancer (BC) is characterized by an extensive genotypic and phenotypic heterogeneity. In-depth investigations into the molecular bases of BC phenotypes, carcinogenesis, progression, and metastasis are necessary for accurate diagnoses, prognoses, and therapy assessments in predictive, precision, and personalized oncology. This review discusses both classic as well as several novel omics fields that are involved or should be used in modern BC investigations, which may be integrated as a holistic term, onco-breastomics. Rapid and recent advances in molecular profiling strategies and analytical techniques based on high-throughput sequencing and mass spectrometry (MS) development have generated large-scale multi-omics datasets, mainly emerging from the three "big omics", based on the central dogma of molecular biology: genomics, transcriptomics, and proteomics. Metabolomics-based approaches also reflect the dynamic response of BC cells to genetic modifications. Interactomics promotes a holistic view in BC research by constructing and characterizing protein-protein interaction (PPI) networks that provide a novel hypothesis for the pathophysiological processes involved in BC progression and subtyping. The emergence of new omics- and epiomics-based multidimensional approaches provide opportunities to gain insights into BC heterogeneity and its underlying mechanisms. The three main epiomics fields (epigenomics, epitranscriptomics, and epiproteomics) are focused on the epigenetic DNA changes, RNAs modifications, and posttranslational modifications (PTMs) affecting protein functions for an in-depth understanding of cancer cell proliferation, migration, and invasion. Novel omics fields, such as epichaperomics or epimetabolomics, could investigate the modifications in the interactome induced by stressors and provide PPI changes, as well as in metabolites, as drivers of BC-causing phenotypes. Over the last years, several proteomics-derived omics, such as matrisomics, exosomics, secretomics, kinomics, phosphoproteomics, or immunomics, provided valuable data for a deep understanding of dysregulated pathways in BC cells and their tumor microenvironment (TME) or tumor immune microenvironment (TIMW). Most of these omics datasets are still assessed individually using distinct approches and do not generate the desired and expected global-integrative knowledge with applications in clinical diagnostics. However, several hyphenated omics approaches, such as proteo-genomics, proteo-transcriptomics, and phosphoproteomics-exosomics are useful for the identification of putative BC biomarkers and therapeutic targets. To develop non-invasive diagnostic tests and to discover new biomarkers for BC, classic and novel omics-based strategies allow for significant advances in blood/plasma-based omics. Salivaomics, urinomics, and milkomics appear as integrative omics that may develop a high potential for early and non-invasive diagnoses in BC. Thus, the analysis of the tumor circulome is considered a novel frontier in liquid biopsy. Omics-based investigations have applications in BC modeling, as well as accurate BC classification and subtype characterization. The future in omics-based investigations of BC may be also focused on multi-omics single-cell analyses.

Association between type of drinking water and upper gastrointestinal cancer incidence in the Linxian General Population

BACKGROUND

This study aimed to explore the association between drinking water source and risk of upper gastrointestinal (UGI) cancer, including esophageal cancer (EC) and gastric cancer (GC), in the Linxian General Population Nutrition Intervention Trial (NIT) cohort.

METHODS

In this study, we used data from the Linxian NIT cohort, which included 29,584 healthy adults aged 40 to 69 years. Subjects were enrolled in April 1986 and followed up until March 2016. Tap water drinking status and demographic characteristics were collected at baseline. Subjects who drank tap water were treated as the exposed group. Hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% confidence intervals (95% CIs) were estimated using the Cox proportional hazard model.

RESULTS

A total of 5,463 cases of UGI cancer were identified during the 30-year follow-up period. After adjusting for multiple factors, the incidence rate of UGI cancer in participants who drank tap water was significantly lower compared with individuals in the control (HR = 0.91, 95% CI: 0.86-0.97). A similar association was observed between tap water drinking and EC incidence (HR = 0.89, 95% CI: 0.82-0.97). The association between drinking tap water and risk of UGI cancer and EC incidence did not vary across the subgroup by age and gender (All P_interaction > 0.05). For EC incidence, an interaction effect was observed for riboflavin/niacin supplements and drinking water source (P_interaction = 0.03). No association was observed between drinking water source and GC incidence.

CONCLUSIONS

In this prospective cohort study in Linxian, participants who drank tap water had a lower risk of EC incidence. As a source of drinking water, use of tap water may reduce the risk of EC by avoiding exposure to nitrate/nitrite. Measures should be taken to improve the quality of drinking water in high-incidence areas of EC.

TRIAL REGISTRATION

The trial is registered with ClinicalTrials.gov (NCT00342654, 21/06/2006), and the trial name is Nutrition Intervention Trials in Linxian Follow-up Study.

Association Between Water Intake and Mortality Risk-Evidence From a National Prospective Study

Background

Few studies have explored the association between water intake and mortality risk, and the findings were inconsistent.

Objective

This study aimed to explore the water intake–mortality association, utilizing the data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) and the 2015 public-linked mortality files released by the National Center for Health Statistics.

Methods

We used the diet- and mortality-linked data of a total of 35,463 adults (17,234 men) aged ≥20 years in the NHANESs 1999–2014 to perform a prospective study. The multivariate-adjusted Cox proportional hazards model was used to explore the associations of the amount of water intake (expressed by total water, plain water, beverage, and food water) and water intake proportion (expressed by the percentage of each kind of water) with mortality risks due to all causes, malignant neoplasms/cancer, and heart disease. The restricted cubic spline plots were adopted to clarify the dose–response relationships among them.

Results

With a median of 88 months (interquartile range: 49–136 months) follow-up, a total of 4,915 all-cause deaths occurred, including 1,073 and 861 deaths from malignant neoplasms/cancer and heart disease, respectively. The amount of water intake in either type was negatively associated with all-cause mortality risk. Additionally, the negative linear dose–response relationships of water intake and all-cause mortality risk were found for all types of water except for food water, which followed a non-linear pattern. Similarly, compared to the lowest quartile (beverage water intake: <676 g/day; food water intake: <532 g/day), beverage and food water intakes in the range of 1,033–1,524 and 1,612–3,802 g/day were associated with decreased malignant neoplasms/cancer mortality risk. A U-shaped dose–response relationship was found for beverage water intake and malignant neoplasms/cancer mortality risk and a negative linear dose–response relationship was found for food water intake and malignant neoplasms/cancer mortality risk. Coffee and/or tea consumption was/were negatively associated with mortality risks due to all causes and malignant neoplasms/cancer. No significant associations of water intake proportion and mortality risks were found.

Conclusion

Our findings demonstrated that higher water intake is associated with lower mortality risks among the United States population.