HEALTH: Cancer risk higher with Western diet

HEALTH: Cancer risk higher with Western diet


Older Chinese women who eat a Western-style diet loaded with meats and sweets appear to have a greater risk for breast cancer than women who eat mainly soy and vegetables, a new study has concluded. Previous research has found connections between a meat- and fat-heavy Western diet and several kinds of cancer, as well as heart disease and diabetes. And other research has identified links between obesity and cancer.

Researchers said this study signals a link between breast cancer and overall eating patterns — not a single food or nutrient — in Asian women, who have long had lower rates of the disease than Western women. But their numbers have started to rise as their diets have become more Westernised.

The study, which is not definitive, looked at general eating habits of about 3,000 women in Shanghai, ranging in age from 25 to 64. About half of that group had been diagnosed with breast cancer and are participants in an ongoing breast cancer study in Shanghai.

The ‘meat-sweet’ group loaded up on red meat, shrimp, fish, candy, desserts, bread and milk. The ‘vegetable-soy’ group stuck to tofu, vegetables, sprouts, beans, fish and soy milk.Post-menopausal women in the meat-sweet group showed a 60 percent greater risk of developing the most common kind of breast cancer, the kind fueled by the hormone estrogen, compared to those in the vegetable-soy group, according to US and Chinese researchers who conducted the study.

Researchers couldn’t say how the combination of a Western diet and obesity might work in tandem to drive breast cancer. The study, which appears in the journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, found no link, good or bad, between breast cancer and a vegetable-soy diet. Scientists also said that the research should be a less frustrating guide for anybody looking to adopt sensible eating habits, instead of often contradictory research that names one vitamin, mineral or food as a cancer-quashing magic bullet. ap

source : www.dailytimes.com.pk