Metabolic syndrome tied to triple negative breast cancer

Women diagnosed with triple negative breast cancer are much more likely to have metabolic syndrome—a combination of risk factors that can include high blood glucose, high blood pressure, abdominal obesity, low HDL, elevated cholesterol and high triglycerides—than those with other forms of breast cancer. In a study presented at the 2009 American Society of Clinical Oncology Annual Meeting and published in a special edition of the Journal of Clinical Oncology, researchers evaluated 176 patients, 86 who were triple negative and 90 who were not. Fifty-eight percent of triple negative patients had metabolic syndrome compared to only 36.7 percent of non-triple negative patients. Hypertension and BMI alone, however, were not associated with triple-negative.