High-fat diet results in neoplastic changes in the breast of the female rat.

Interactions between genes and environment determine a phenotype in normal health and in disease. Modern-day environment, including diet, has immensely changed since the time of the Industrial Revolution, and before that, from the Agricultural Revolution and Neolithic Revolution.  We used whole transcriptome technologies here to discover the most significant changes in the mammary gland of a vertebrate model organism following consumption of a high-fat diet. We report that exposure of female rodents to a high-fat diet results in growth  factor- and tumor size-related changes in the mammary gland including activation of Angptl7.