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Updated: Oct 26, 2026
Characterization and Functional Prediction of Bacteria in Ovarian Tissues
Published on: October 23, 2021
The Role of Distress-related Metabolic Dysfunction in Ovarian Cancer Development: a pooled case-control study
Nan Lin1,2, Raji Balasubramanian3, Giulia Menichetti1
1Channing Division of Network Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA.
Background:
Evidence suggests chronic distress influences ovarian cancer (OC) etiology and metabolomic profiles. Here, we evaluated the association of a metabolite-based distress score (MDS) and OC risk.
Methods:
We included two matched case-control studies nested within the Nurses' Health Studies (N=584) and the Prostate, Lung, Colorectal, and Ovarian Cancer Screening Trial (N=348). Metabolites were measured 3-27 years before diagnosis using liquid-chromatography tandem mass spectrometry. We examined the association of quintiles of MDS and 19 constituent metabolites with OC risk using unconditional logistic regression and stratified by tumor histotype, menopausal status, and age at diagnosis.
Results:
We observed women in the highest versus lowest quintile of MDS had an increased OC risk (OR=1.62,95%CI=1.03-2.54,ptrend=0.07), and type 2 tumors (OR=1.71,95%CI=1.03-2.83,ptrend=0.11). Associations were suggestively stronger for premenopausal and <69-year-old women, and driven by pseudouridine, and N2,N2-dimethylguanosine.
Conclusion:
Our findings suggest chronic distress-associated metabolic dysregulation may represent a novel OC risk factor, especially among younger women.
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