Women who eat fatty food while pregnant could be increasing the chances of breast cancer in their daughters and even their granddaughters, a new study suggests.
The research showed a high-fat diet in rats led to "irreversible changes to the DNA to the foetus" and research had also shown fatty foods triggered an increase in a pregnant woman's oestrogen levels.
Scientists from Virginia Tech and Georgetown University believe this might alter the genes passed down through generations.
During the trial, rats fed oestrogen supplements as well as a fatty diet passed on the increased likelihood of breast cancer all the way to their great-granddaughters.
National Breast Cancer Foundation research investment director Dr Alison Butt told The Daily Telegraph that prevention could start as early as the womb.
"High-fat diets or oestrogen-increased exposure can actually cause these significant changes and you will carry those changes from the foetus onwards, and those changes might cause or trigger disease much later down the track," Dr Butt said.
"It is not that alone - cancer is usually an accumulation of those changes, which is why usually it happens much later in life (but) this research says to pregnant women you can have a very important, positive effect on your children, maybe for many generations to come."
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