Melanie Rutkowski, PhD, of UVA’s Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Cancer Biology, found that disrupting the microbiome of mice caused hormone receptor-positive breast cancer to become more aggressive. Altering the microbiome, the collection of microorganisms that live in the gut and elsewhere, had dramatic effects in the body, priming the cancer to spread.
This new research suggests that an unhealthy, inflamed gut causes breast cancer to become much more invasive and spread more quickly to other parts of the body.