Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, February 16, 1993 TAG: 9302160108
SECTION: NATL/INTL PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Knight-Ridder/Tribune Note: below
DATELINE: BOSTON LENGTH: Medium
STONE AGE MAY PROVIDE CANCER CLUES
American women may be 100 times more vulnerable to breast cancer than their Stone Age ancestors, a group of researchers proposed at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.The scientists called for research into hormonal treatments that might cause a woman's body to mimic that of her Stone Age cousins and thereby vastly lower her risk for breast cancer.
The findings are based upon observation of hunter-gatherers in Africa and traditional Australian Aborigines who still live much as did human ancestors of thousands of years ago, said Dr. S. Boyd Eaton, an Emory University radiologist.
Eaton and collaborators around the world have noted that while Americans lead markedly different lives from their ancestors, their bodies and biochemistry are still very similar to those of the ancients.
Hunter-gatherers, for example, tend to nurse their young for an average of 36 months per child, compared with three months per child for modern Americans. Also, while the average American woman has fewer than two children, the average hunter-gatherer woman has about six children.
In addition, American women reach sexual maturity at much younger ages than do hunter-gatherers and begin menopause later, Eaton said.
Evidence suggests that a woman's breast cancer susceptibility is related to changes in breast tissue called epithelial cells, Eaton said. Reproductive habits common to primitive peoples have a beneficial effect on epithelial cells in the breast and in part explain the rarity of breast cancer among these people, he said.
No one suggests that American females should begin having babies sooner and have more of them to ward off breast cancer, Eaton said. But it may be that giving them low doses of hormones to influence epithelial cells in a way similar to pregnancy and nursing might be helpful.
"We don't advocate hormone therapy," Eaton said. "But this sort of thing should be researched because it could be beneficial."
Eaton and several other scientists presented studies of tribal people to give new insights into modern health problems. They call this approach to research "evolutionary medicine."
Other studies suggested that mothers' sleeping with their babies may forestall sudden infant death syndrome and that colicky babies who seem to cry all the time may not suffer from any disorder.
James McKenna, an anthropologist from Pomona College in California, said his findings suggest that sleeping with babies, a practice common among primitive people, prevents infants from falling into very deep sleep. This could help some babies avoid sudden infant death syndrome, the mysterious death of seemingly healthy sleeping babies, he suggested.
Dr. Ronald G. Barr, a pediatrician at McGill University in Montreal, said that fewer than 10 percent of colicky babies actually suffer illness. Studies find that babies of hunter-gatherers are fed on average about four times an hour and are carried by their mothers almost constantly.
Even with all this attention, Barr said, these babies cry on average as many times in a day as American babies. The length of each crying bout for the hunter-gatherer babies is, however, shorter.
What many people consider colic, Barr said, may just be within the range of normal behavior. He conceded that knowing this doesn't make excessive crying any less annoying to parents.