Discovering a relationship between insomnia and ovarian cancer!

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Brigham and Women's Health Center scientists have discovered that there is a genetic link between insomnia and the risk of developing epithelial ovarian cancer, and poor clinical outcomes for this disease.

The journal EBioMedicine reports that this study included 66,500 women with insomnia or epithelial ovarian cancer. The researchers analyzed data related to the health status of the study participants and took vital samples from them for Mendeleev randomization, which is a statistical research method to understand how genes associated with a certain trait (external manifestations) affect other traits. Mendelian randomization also helps establish a relationship between risk factors and diseases.

The results showed that women suffering from insomnia were 60 percent more likely to develop epithelial ovarian cancer compared to healthy participants. The risk of other malignancies, including clear cell ovarian cancer and well-differentiated serous ovarian cancer, was also reduced by 50 percent and 20 percent, respectively. And insomnia was associated with a lower probability of survival in the case of invasive epithelial ovarian cancer.

According to researchers, some women may have a genetic predisposition to insomnia and ovarian cancer. They believe that the reason may be a disturbance in the regulation of the hormone leptin, which regulates the feeling of hunger and helps cell division, and the activity of the Akt pathways, which is responsible for the continuation and proliferation of cells. Disruption of Akt and leptin may lead to the proliferation of cancer cells.