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You may be reading this message because you or someone close to you has been diagnosed with breast cancer. Learning more about the disease can help you feel better prepared to talk with doctors about your condition, treatment and care. This is a good place to start. From here, you can visit other sections of the site that offer more detailed information. Take your time. It’s important that you get answers to your questions. This will help you to better manage the impact of cancer on your life.
The breast is a body part with major symbolic meaning and functions. Although its primarybiological role is breastfeeding infants, for some women the breast is significant in terms ofaesthetics, seduction and sexuality.
The female breast is made up of cells and structures that produce and secrete milk.
Some definitions from the :
Throughout our lives, our breasts are influenced by sex hormones, primarily estrogen and progesterone. As the concentration of these hormones varies throughout a woman’s life (puberty, menstrual cycle, pregnancy, breastfeeding and menopause), these fluctuations cause changes in breast function and size.
Main roles of sex hormones
Estrogen and progesterone are the top two female hormones and they play several essential roles in the body. During puberty, they stimulate the development of the sexual organs and prepare the body for pregnancy.
To trigger hormone synthesis, the brain secretes follicle stimulating hormone (FSH) and luteinizing hormone (LH). Travelling through the bloodstream to the ovaries, they stimulate the ovaries to produce and secrete estrogen and progesterone. The ovaries also produce a small amount of testosterone and androgen, sex hormones involved in hair growth and sex drive, among other things.
Here are the main roles of estrogen and progesterone:
Estrogen:
Progesterone:
Hormones are physiological messengers.
Various organs secrete hormones into the blood to send messages to other parts of the body. When a message reaches the targeted organ, it responds by adjusting its activities and behaviour. Like a key in a lock, hormones bind to their respective receptors in a cell to trigger a specific action within that cell.
Here are a few examples:
Estrogen and progesterone receptors are nuclear receptors.
Estrogen interacts with the estrogen receptor (ER), and progesterone with the progesterone receptor (PR), both of which are considered nuclear receptors. They are called “nuclear” because, to carry out their respective actions, these hormones travel to a cell’s nucleus and interact with DNA to trigger the production of specific proteins.
The estrogen and progesterone receptors’ target genes are involved in cell proliferation and differentiation, DNA replication and programmed cell death (apoptosis), among other functions. These processes are necessary to the hormones’ roles in the various target tissues.
Given the important role of estrogen and progesterone in breast development, altered hormone signalling can lead to breast cancer. More details are available in the following sections.