Walnuts, grapefruit and cancer
Wed April 22nd, 2009
By Jane Collingwood
Walnuts, grapefruit and overcooked meat can all have an impact on cancer
in different ways, a major conference has heard.
Cancer researchers in the US are discovering more links between diet and cancer risk, prevention and treatment.
Dr Elaine Hardman of Marshall University, West Virginia, USA, believes that people who regularly eat walnuts will be protected against breast cancer. Her team used laboratory mice which were predisposed to developing cancer.
Some were fed the human equivalent of two ounces of walnuts per day. This "significantly decreased breast tumour incidence, the number of glands with a tumour and tumour size".
"These laboratory mice typically have 100 per cent tumour incidence at five months; walnut consumption delayed those tumours by at least three weeks," said Dr Hardman, who suggests the effect is due mainly to essential omega-3 fatty acids in walnuts.
* In a second study, Dr Kristin Anderson of the University of Minnesota, USA, backed up earlier findings that charred meat may increase risk of cancer.
Her team looked specifically at pancreatic cancer among a database of 62,581 participants. Diagnosis of pancreatic cancer was linked to consumption of well and very well done meats cooked by frying, grilling or barbecuing.
Cooking in this way can form carcinogens, which do not form when meat is baked or stewed, she explains. Participants with highest estimated intake of meat-derived carcinogens had 70 per cent higher risk than those with the lowest intake.
* In a further study, Dr Ezra Cohen from the University of Chicago, USA, investigated the effect of grapefruit juice on anti-cancer drugs. "Grapefruit juice can increase blood levels of certain drugs three to five times," he said.
Drinking eight ounces of grapefruit juice with the drug rapamycin increased the drug's action. But this was a small, early clinical trial based on just 25 patients, many of whom reported potentially risky side-effects.
Findings all presented at the American Association for Cancer Research's 100th Annual Meeting held in Denver, Colorado, USA on April 18-22, 2009.
Tags: | North America | Women’s Health & Gynaecology | Diet & Food | Cancer
Printer friendly page