Search Weight Loss Topics:




Mar 16

Cadmium in Diet May Increase Breast Cancer Risk

Diet Comments Off on Cadmium in Diet May Increase Breast Cancer Risk

THURSDAY, March 15 (HealthDay News) -- Consuming the toxic metal cadmium in the foods you eat may raise your risk for breast cancer, a new Swedish study suggests.

Cadmium, which is found in many farm fertilizers, can make its way into soil and water, the researchers explained. Some of the main sources of cadmium in the diet are bread and other cereals, potatoes, root crops and vegetables. Once it enters the body, cadmium may mimic the effects of the female hormone estrogen, which can fuel the growth of certain breast cancers.

"Modern life has become increasingly dangerous for our breast health," said Dr. Marisa Weiss, director of breast radiation oncology and breast health outreach at Lankenau Medical Center in Wynnewood, Pa. "Now, there's cadmium hanging onto our carrots and whole grains, the very vegetables that are supposed to be good for us," she noted.

"To help our patients reduce their exposure to environmental chemicals (like cadmium), which might increase their risk for breast cancer, we have to partner with our farmers to make sure our foods are grown in healthy soil without chemically loaded fertilizers," said Weiss, who is also president and founder of Breastcancer.org. "Sticking to real, whole (unprocessed) foods remains a healthy strategy until we can be more sure of what's inside the package."

In the Swedish study, the researchers followed close to 56,000 women for more than 12 years. Women filled out food frequency questionnaires, which the researchers used to estimate how much cadmium they consumed in their diets. There were 2,112 breast cancer diagnoses during the follow-up period, including 1,626 estrogen receptor-positive and 290 estrogen receptor-negative cancers.

Women who had the highest amount of cadmium in their diets were 21 percent more likely to develop breast cancer than women who had the least amount of cadmium in their diets. This risk increased to 27 percent among women who were lean or normal-weight, the study showed. The risk was similar, 23 percent, for both estrogen receptor-positive and -negative tumors.

Those women who consumed higher amounts of whole grain and vegetables had a lower risk of breast cancer compared to women exposed to dietary cadmium through other foods.

"It's possible that this healthy diet to some extent can counteract the negative effect of cadmium, but our findings need to be confirmed with further studies," study author Agneta Akesson, an associate professor at Karolinska Institute in Sweden, said in a news release from the American Association for Cancer Research. "It is, however, important that the exposure to cadmium from all food is low."

The findings are published in the March 15 issue of Cancer Research.

Johanna Lampe, a member of the public health sciences division at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, said the new study adds to a growing body of research linking cadmium exposure to breast cancer risk. "It adds another grain of sand to the pile," she said. "We would benefit from more research in this area to understand these risks better."

See original here:
Cadmium in Diet May Increase Breast Cancer Risk

Related Posts

    Your Full Name

    Your Email

    Your Phone Number

    Select your age (30+ only)

    Select Your US State

    Program Choice

    Confirm over 30 years old

    Yes

    Confirm that you resident in USA

    Yes

    This is a Serious Inquiry

    Yes

    Message:



    matomo tracker