This Core also studies risk factors for reproductive diseases and develops new epidemiologic methods for investigating these diseases.
Childhood cancer is thought to be due to inheriting one mutant gene from one of the parents.
Evidence from the Ames lab suggests that the father's bad diet or smoking causes DNA damage to sperm and is likely to be a major source of childhood cancer. This incorporation of massive amounts of uracil due to vitamin deficiency results in chromosome breaks. The M. Smith lab has shown that acute lymphocytic leukemia appears to be associated with folate deficiency. Folic acid deficiency in humans is correlated with decreases in sperm count and the quality of sperm. Seminal plasma folate concentrations were shown to be 1.5x higher, and to correlate with, blood plasma levels.