Deciphering the molecular and physiological connections between obesity and breast cancer

Abstract

Obesity is associated with the higher risk of breast cancer in postmenopausal women. The leptin signaling pathway is recognized to primarily regulate energy balance and associated with breast cancer. Furthermore, the estrogen signaling pathway plays a critical role in breast carcinogenesis. In this review, we discuss how obesity is linked to breast cancer via cross-talk of leptin and estrogen pathways.

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Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank the members of the Feng laboratory for helpful discussion, and insightful comments by the reviewers. Work in the authors’ laboratory is currently supported by NIH grants (R01DK073945 and R01DK075916) and a new concept award from DOD (W81XWH-10-1-0480).

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