Background: Accumulating evidence suggests that energy regulation, particularly insulin resistance, may influence breast cancer risk.
Materials and methods: The associations between single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in energy regulation candidate genes and postmenopausal breast cancer risk were evaluated. Conditional logistic regression was run on 488 matched case-control pairs from the American Cancer Society's Cancer Prevention Study II Nutrition Cohort. The studied SNPs were INS+1127 PstI (rs3842752), INSR H1085H (rs1799817) and PPARy Prol2Ala (rs1801282).
Results: A significantly lower breast cancer risk was found among women homozygous for the T allele of INSR H1085H. A marginally significant increased risk of breast cancer was observed among women homozygous for the Ala allele of PPARgamma Pro12Ala. No significant association was observed between INS+ 1127 PstI and breast cancer risk.
Conclusion: Our results suggest that polymorphisms in these energy regulation candidate genes may be associated with risk of breast cancer, but replication in larger studies is needed.