Jim Liebelt Christian Blog and Commentary

Act now to share the love of Christ in the Middle East

Bad Diet in Youth Might Raise Risk of Early Breast Cancer

*The following is excerpted from an online article posted on HealthDay.

A poor diet while young may do more than just make it tough to fit into a pair of jeans: New research suggests it might also raise a younger woman's risk for breast cancer.

"A diet high in sugar, refined carbohydrates, and red and processed meat makes it more likely that you may experience early onset breast cancer," said study senior author Karin Michels. She is chair of epidemiology at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health, in Los Angeles.

An unhealthy diet appeared to increase that risk by more than one-third, but the findings can't prove cause-and-effect, Michels said. "We are talking about a link or association," she noted.

The study tracked data from more than 45,000 women enrolled in the Nurses' Health Study II. All of the women completed food frequency questionnaires about their teen and early adult diets, and were followed up for 22 years.

The researchers assigned the diets an inflammatory score, based on a method that links diet with established inflammatory markers in the blood. Eating a high-sugar, refined carbohydrate diet has been linked to higher levels of inflammatory markers in the blood, Michels explained.

Compared to the women with diets with a low inflammatory score, those in the highest of five groups during their teen years had a 35 percent higher risk of breast cancer before menopause, Michels and colleagues found.

And those in the highest inflammatory group during their early adult years had a 41 percent higher risk.

However, the inflammatory score was not linked with overall breast cancer incidence or with breast cancer occurring after menopause, the researchers found.

The researchers can't explain why inflammation may drive up the risk. And while the main components of the inflammatory diet were foods that aren't surprising (such as white bread, hamburgers and pasta), the list also included lesser amounts of certain vegetables, such as celery, green pepper, mushrooms, eggplant and fish.

The study also has limitations, the authors said, including the possibility of error in remembering a high school diet when the women were in their 30s and older.

The study was published March 1 in the journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention.

Source: HealthDay
https://consumer.healthday.com/cancer-information-5/breast-cancer-news-94/bad-diet-in-youth-might-raise-risk-of-early-breast-cancer-720248.html