Low-carb diet may reduce breast cancer risk

Low-carb dieters may be reducing their risk of breast cancer while they're shedding pounds, a new study shows.
While diets high in fat have long been suspected as a risk factor for breast cancer, a new study in Mexican women led by Dr. Walter Willett at the Harvard School of Public Health showed that a carbohydrate laden diet may double the risk of breast cancer risk compared to consuming a more balanced diet. The results appear in the August edition of the journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention.

"Scientists have long suspected that diet was among the factors contributing to breast cancer," study co-author Willett said in a prepared statement. "Now, with studies like ours, we are beginning gradually to understand what elements of diet specifically are associated with the disease, and to grasp the chemical and biological processes that contribute to it at the cellular level."

In the study of 1,866 women in Mexico, researchers from the Instituto de Salud Pública in Cuernavaca, Mexico, and the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston found that women who derived 57 percent or more of their total energy intake from carbohydrates incurred a risk of breast cancer 2.2 times higher than women with more balanced diets. Dietary patterns in Mexico are characterized by higher consumption of carbohydrates and lower intake of fat and animal protein than those in more affluent western countries.

The researchers theorize that the link between carbohydrates and breast cancer may be related to elevated levels of insulin and insulin-like growth factor binding proteins in the blood. [cancerfacts.com]

Posted September 2004 | Permanent Link


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