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Sweet Foods Increase Breast Cancer Risk

Date: Friday, November 11, 2005

Source: http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/331/7525/1102-b?etoc

Regularly eating sweet foods, including biscuits, ice cream, honey, and chocolate, may increase the risk of breast cancer.

Results from a large case control study of more than 5000 Italian women have shown that the effects may be significant: ?If real, the excess risk for frequent sweet consumption may account for 12% of breast cancer cases in this Italian population and, therefore, is far from negligible on a public health level,? say researchers in a report in Annals of Oncology (published online on 25 October; http://annonc.oxfordjournals.org, doi: 10.1093/annonc/mdj051) ...............................

Trained interviewers used a questionnaire to gather data on medical history; physical activity; sociodemographic factors; and smoking, alcohol, and other lifestyle habits. Information on diet over the previous two years came from a 78 question food questionnaire.

Compared with women who consume less than the lowest tertile, women with the highest intake of desserts (including biscuits, brioches, cakes, puffs, and ice cream) had a multivariate odds ratio of 1.19 (95% confidence interval 1.02 to 1.39) and women with the highest intake of sugars (including sugar, honey, jam, marmalade, chocolate) had a multivariate odds ratio of 1.19 (1.02 to 1.38).
?In this study, sweet consumption was directly associated [with] breast cancer risk. The risk was consistently elevated in strata of age, [body mass index], total calorie intake, alcohol, physical activity and family history of breast cancer,? say the authors from the Istituto di Ricerche Farmacologiche, Milan; the International Agency for Research on Cancer; and a number of other centres in Milan, Genoa, and Naples.

We also found that women above the highest decile of consumption of cakes and desserts and refined sugars had a greater risk of breast cancer, suggesting that sweet foods are among the features of a high risk dietary pattern.?
The authors point out that the sweet foods were rich in several nutrients potentially involved in causing breast cancer, including refined carbohydrates and saturated fats. ?A frequent consumption of sugars or foods with a high glycemic index may lead to insulin resistance, and a direct association between glycemic index or glycemic load and breast cancer risk has been suggested, they say.
This may cause an increase of insulin related growth factors which are promoters of breast carcinogenesis. Insulin also stimulates ovarian steroid secretion, including oestrogens and androgens, which have been related to excess breast cancer risk.?

Abergavenny
Roger Dobson