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Allostatic score and its associations with demographics, healthy behaviors, tumor characteristics, and mitochondrial DNA among breast cancer patients

  • Epidemiology
  • Published:
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Abstract

Introduction

Allostatic load (AL), a composite index, has been used to capture variation in life-course stresses. However, few studies have been carried out among breast cancer patients.

Methods

In this study, we examined the cross-sectional association of AL with demographics, healthy behaviors, tumor characteristics, and mitochondrial DNA copy number in breast cancer patients. The study used a sub-sample of 934 women with newly diagnosed breast cancer at M.D. Anderson from 2013 to 2018. To construct the AL score, the study used a battery of seventeen factors that represents the activity of five physiological systems: metabolic, cardiovascular, immunological, renal, and liver.

Results

AL was positively associated with the age of disease diagnosis (P = 0.002), and was higher in Black and Hispanic populations than White (P = 0.001 and 0.032, respectively). AL was also found more abundant in those who experienced marital dissolution (P = 0.006), lacked a college education (P = 0.045), currently smoked (P = 0.011), and had low levels of physical activity (P = 0.037) than their counterparts. The study then found that higher AL was associated with increased odds of having poorly differentiated tumors (Odds ratio (OR): 1.40, 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.28, 1.62). An additional significant association was observed between AL with estrogen receptor negative (ER-) (OR = 1.56, 95%CI: 1.02, 2.36) among Black patients. Finally, we observed a significant positive correlation between AL with leukocyte mitochondrial DNA copy number variation (P < 0.001).

Conclusions

We conclude AL is influenced by selected demographics and healthy behaviors, and further is correlated with tumor characteristics and mitochondrial DNA copy number in breast cancer patients.

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Data sharing

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

The study was supported by U01 CA179655 from NCI/NIH.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Departments of Epidemiology, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX, 77030, USA

    Hua Zhao, Renduo Song, Yuanqing Ye, Wong-Ho Chow & Jie Shen

  2. Department of Family Medicine and Population Health, School of Medicine, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA, 23284, USA

    Hua Zhao & Jie Shen

  3. Department of Precision Health and Data Science, School of Public Health, The Second Affiliated Hospital, Zhejiang University School of Medicine, Hangzhou, China

    Yuanqing Ye

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  1. Hua Zhao
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Correspondence to Hua Zhao.

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All procedures performed in this study were approved by the Institutional Review Board at M D Anderson Cancer Center and in accordance with the ethical standards of 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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Zhao, H., Song, R., Ye, Y. et al. Allostatic score and its associations with demographics, healthy behaviors, tumor characteristics, and mitochondrial DNA among breast cancer patients. Breast Cancer Res Treat 187, 587–596 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10549-021-06102-0

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