Thu, Sep-11-03, 08:23
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Senior Member
Posts: 2,018
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Plan: Atkins
Stats: 320/220/195
BF:
Progress: 80%
Location: Pensacola, FL
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Monounsaturated Fat Lowers Breast Cancer Risk
Quote:
http://www.cnn.com/HEALTH/9801/11/fat.breast.cancer/
Study: Low-fat diet doesn't fight breast cancer
But certain fats may cut risk
CHICAGO (CNN) -- An overall low-fat diet probably does not help women reduce their risk of breast cancer, according to the results of a new study.
But the study, which appears in the latest issue of the American Medical Association's Archives of Internal Medicine, found that women could reduce their cancer risk by increasing the amount monounsaturated fat -- the kind in olive and canola oils -- and decreasing the amount of polyunsaturated fat -- found in other varieties of vegetable oil and seafood.
Saturated fat -- the kind found in meat and dairy products -- had no effect one way or the other, researchers found.
Researchers from the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm and Harvard University evaluated some 61,000 women in Sweden to determine if women who were eating a low-fat diet had less incidence of breast cancer, as had been previously thought. But they found no apparent correlation.
However, since a high-fat diet is thought to possibly lead to other types of cancer and heart disease, the researchers cautioned that a low-fat diet still had beneficial effects.
"I believe that eating a low-fat diet is a very good idea for your health generally, and also for cancer risk and for weight control generally," said Dr. Michael Thun of the American Cancer Society.
In the study, those women who consumed more monounsaturated fats had less incidence of breast cancer, while those who consumed more polyunsaturated fats had a higher incidence.
The study's authors theorized that polyunsaturated fats may lead to cancer because they increase the formation of free radicals, dangerous byproducts that form when the body metabolizes oxygen.
Others have theorized that monounsaturated fats are less easily oxidized and contain vitamins that soak up free radicals.
However, some experts caution that the study's findings could be skewed by the fact that all of its participants were Swedish women, a relatively heterogeneous group with a generally high-fat diet.
"It's like trying to find inferences in lung cancer rates when everybody is a smoker," said Dr. Neal Barnard of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, a Washington-based education and research group.
He said the findings "should not be interpreted as a license to glug the olive oil."
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Don't you just love how they continue to push a Low-Fat Diet, which is normally high in Polyunsaturates relative to Monounsaturates...even after studies reveal that eating a diet high in Monounsaturates [such as a Low-Carb diet] may reduce your risk of certain cancers.
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