The Breastmilk Epigenetics Cohort Study: Donor Information Sheet
We would like to invite you to help us to continue our research into understanding breast cancer by donating a sample of your breast milk. We will also ask you to complete a questionnaire about your general health and various risk factors for cancer.
It is completely up to you whether or not you decide to take part. Before you decide, we would like you to understand why the research is being done and what it would involve for you. Please take time to read the following information, and discuss it with others if you wish. Do ask us if there is anything that is not clear to you, or if you would like any further information. Contact information can be found at the end of this information sheet.
What is the purpose of the study?
Imperial College London and the Hearts Milk Bank are collaborating in research to investigate the causes of breast cancer, as well as ways that we can predict who will develop the disease. We know that breastfeeding protects women from getting breast cancer, and to some extent ovarian cancer. Also, the longer a woman produces milk over a lifetime, the more her risk is reduced. However, we do not understand how this happens. Furthermore, many of the markers of breast cancer risk that we already know about have been found in blood. We do not know whether these markers are relevant to what happens in the breasts themselves, as such markers can be very different in different cell types.
Therefore, this study has two broad purposes:
To understand how variations between milk samples from different women indicates risk of cancer
To understand how breastfeeding reduces cancer risk.