Review Article Medical and Clinical Archives Med Clin Arch, 2018 doi: 10.15761/MCA.1000129 Volume 2(1): 1-7 ISSN: 2515-1053 Dietary habits and other habits and breast cancer risk Trivikram M Deshpande 1 , AK Pandey 2 * and SK Shyama 1 1 Department of Zoology, Goa University, Goa 403206, India 2 Department of Radiotherapy, Goa Medical College, Goa 403202, India Correspondence to: Trivikram M. Deshpande, Department of Zoology, Goa University, India, E-mail: tridesh@yahoo.com ; tridesh@gmail.com Received: January 21, 2018; Accepted: January 25, 2018; Published: January 26, 2018 Introduction Being under Portuguese rule for about 450 years, a considerable proportion of Goans over a period, acquired Portuguese lifestyle where the diet is predominantly of non-vegetarian type and other habits such as smoking, consumption of alcohol is common. Goa being gifed with a lengthy coastal belt, fshes and other sea food items form the major part of Goan’s everyday diet. In Goa, there are three major communities viz., Hindu, Christian and Muslim. Some afuent sections of people of these communities exhibit more or less a western trend with regard to dietary and other habits. Being a tourist place of international fame, many national and international tourists visits Goa. Tey especially, the western tourists also have infuenced Goan lifestyle to a considerable extent. Animal products like eggs, chicken, mutton, etc. are routinely consumed by majority of people while pork is consumed mainly by Christian community. Paddy is cultivated to a considerable extent in Goa although vegetables are sparsely grown here. Hence, rice and fsh form the staple diet of a Goan. Tus, majority of Goan population consumes non-vegetarian diet on a routine basis. Te liquor is cheaply and readily available here compared to other parts of the country. Hence, consumption of alcohol is very common and other habits like smoking is also part of the lifestyle of several Goans. Tese lifestyle or environmental factors may contribute considerably towards the induction of breast cancer either directly or may interact with the genetic factors in a multifarious way and induce malignancy. It’s interesting to study the relation of these dietary and other habits with the high incidence of breast cancer in the state. Further, to fnd out whether these habits have any efect on the genome stability is also important in knowing the etiology of the disease. Once, some insight is gained into the cause of the disease, preventive measures can be advised. Te concept that specifc dietary chemical substances act as tumour initiators, co-carcinogens or tumour producing agents [1] provided the framework for many future studies of nutrition and carcinogenesis. Several points must be considered in evaluating the relationship of environemental exposure to breast cancer. Among these considerations are the mechanism of tumorigenesis, timing of environemental exposure and genetic modulation of exposure [2]. Te observations in human migrants and rodent models strongly suggest that additional eforts should be directed to understand the combined efects of diet, nutrition, endocrine status and genetic factors during adolescence and how they may combine to modify breast development and susceptibility to cancer. Genetic testing, as part of a comprehensive risk assessment of women, could greatly facilitate the evaluation of dietary and other breast cancer prevention strategies [3]. Hence, it is recommended to carry out studies on the genetic makeup of the breast cancer patients along with the environmental factors. In order to have a better understanding of the efect of dietary and environmental factors on human genome and the induction of breast cancer, this preliminary study was undertaken. Case control studies are relatively simple and economical to carry out and are increasingly used to investigate causes of diseases, especially rare diseases. Tey include people with a disease (or other outcome variable) of interest and a suitable group of people unafected by the disease or outcome variable. Te occurrence of the possible cause is compared between cases and controls. Data concerning more than one point in time are collected. Case-control studies are thus longitudinal, in contrast to cross-sectional studies [3]. Case-control studies have been called retrospective studies since the investigator is looking backwards from the disease to a possible cause. Tis can be confusing because the terms retrospective and prospective are increasingly being used to describe the timing of data collection in relation to the current date. In this sense a case-control study may be either retrospective, when all the data dealt with the past or progressive in which data collection continues with the passage of time [3]. A case-control study begins with the selection of cases which should represent all the cases from a specifed population. Te most difcult task is to select controls so as to sample the exposure prevalence in the population that generated the cases. Furthermore, the choice of controls and cases must not be infuenced by exposure status which should be determined in the same manner for both. It is not necessary for cases and controls to be all-inclusive; in fact, they can be restricted to any specifed subgroup such as old people, males or females [3]. Te controls should represent people who would have been designated study cases if they had developed the disease. Ideally, case-control studies use new (incident) cases to avoid the difculty of disentangling factors related to causation and survival, although studies have ofen been conducted using prevalence data (for example, case-control studies of congenital malformations) [3]. An important aspect of case control studies is the determination of the start and duration of exposure for cases and controls. In the case- control design, the exposure status of the cases is usually determined afer the development of the disease (retrospective data) and usually