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Breast and cervical cancer screening are associated with dramatically reduced cancer mortality. Mental illnesses have been demonstrated to influence preventative behaviours. This study aims to explore whether anxiety or depressive symptoms is associated with breast and cervical cancer screening. We analyzed data (n = 3104) from the 2013 Brazos Valley Community Health Assessment. The GAD-7 Scale was used to assess the anxiety level, and PHQ-2 was used to assess the depressive symptoms. Stata 15.0 statistical software was used to perform descriptive and logistic regression analysis. Overall, 80.61% of women in each sample met breast cancer or cervical cancer screening guidelines, respectfully. Anxiety was associated with missing breast and cervical cancer screening, but the association was only significant for cervical cancer (OR = 1.430, CI = 1.009, 2.026), not for breast cancer (OR = 1.406, CI =.952, 2.078). Depressive symptom was significantly associated with missing breast (OR = 1.502, CI = 1.051, 2.149) and cervical (OR = 1.689, CI = 1.208, 2.362) cancer screening after controlling for demographics. Women with depressive symptoms and anxiety had higher odds of missing breast and cervical cancer screening. Health promotion programs should consider targeting individuals with anxiety and depression to improve cancer-screening rates.. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Circadian clocks influence virtually all physiological processes, including lactation. Here, we investigate the role of the CLOCK gene in regulation of mammary epithelial cell growth and differentiation. Comparison of mammary morphology in late-pregnant wild-type and ClockΔ19 mice, showed that gland development was negatively impacted by genetic loss of a functional timing system. To understand whether these effects were due, in part, to loss of CLOCK function in the gland, the mouse mammary epithelial cell line, HC11, was transfected with short hairpin RNA that targeted Clock (shClock). Cells transfected with shClock expressed 70% less Clock mRNA than wild-type (WT) HC11 cultures, which resulted in significantly depressed levels of CLOCK protein (P < 0.05). HC11 lines carrying shClock had four-fold higher growth rates (P < 0.05), and the percentage of cells in G1 phase was significantly higher (90.1 ± 1.1% of shClock vs. 71.3 ± 3.6% of WT-HC11) following serum starvation. Quantitative-PCR (qPCR) analysis showed shClock had significant effects (P < 0.0001) on relative expression levels of Ccnd1, Wee1, and Tp63 qPCR analysis of the effect of shClock on Fasn and Cdh1 expression in undifferentiated cultures and cultures treated 96 h with dexamethasone, insulin, and prolactin (differentiated) found levels were reduced by twofold and threefold, respectively (P < 0.05), in shClock line relative to WT cultures. Abundance of CDH1 and TP63 proteins were significantly reduced in cultures transfected with shClock These data support how CLOCK plays a role in regulation of epithelial cell growth and differentiation in the mammary gland., (Copyright © 2016 the American Physiological Society.)