Description: Women diagnosed with breast cancer undergoing chemotherapy experience cognitive, emotional, and physical challenges. Specifically, women experience cognitive impairment, symptoms of anxiety and depression, and physical side effects including disruption in the diversity and community composition of the gut microbiome. To date, there this limited research exploring the associations between these specific challenges. The present cross-sectional study explored the associations of self-reported cognitive functioning, self-reported depression and anxiety symptoms, and gut microbiome diversity and community composition in women with breast cancer receiving chemotherapy (BC) compared to cancer-free healthy controls (HC). The BC group displayed higher rates of cognitive dysfunction and depressive symptoms relative to HC. There was a significant difference in microbiome community composition between BC and HC, particularly characterized by a decreased relative abundance of the mucin-degrading genus Akkermansia in BC compared to HC. Association models identified significant associations between group, cognitive, depression, and microbiome variables. Overall, the study identified that BC participants experienced significant differences in self-reported cognitive functioning, self-reported depression symptoms, microbiome community composition, and mucin-degrading bacteria relative to HC. The present study suggests important associations among multiple variables that may be impacting a women’s experience with breast cancer and treatment through multiple means.

Data type: Other

Sample scope: Monoisolate

Last updated: 2022-07-08