Fatty foods and risk of breast cancer

According to a recent research, younger women who regularly eat foods containing certain types of fat may be increasing their chances of developing breast cancer. This is the first study to link fatty foods with breast cancer in women who have not yet reached menopause. Previous studies, mainly in postmenopausal women, did not find a link between fatty foods and cancer.Researchers from the Harvard Medical School, Boston, USA, studied more than 90,000 premenopausal women who were followed for 8 years. The women were surveyed regarding how often they ate various fatty foods.During the study period, 714 women developed breast cancer. According to the researchers most of these women were still premenopausal at the time of diagnosis. The total amount of fat consumed was not linked to breast cancer, but eating certain types of fat was. Eating animal fat, which is usually found in red meat and high-fat dairy foods, increased the risk of cancer, while eating vegetable fats did not. Women who ate high amounts of animal fat were up to 54% more likely to develop breast cancer than women who ate the lowest amounts.

Exactly how fatty foods raise the risk of breast cancer is unclear. After being eaten, fat is thought to raise body levels of certain hormones that could promote breast cancer. Still, this doesn't explain why eating animal fats, but not vegetable fats, made cancer more likely. The presence of some chemical in animal fat that increases the risk of breast cancer, is suspected.

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