Red Meat and Breast Cancer Link

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Red Meat and Breast Cancer Link

JoAnn Guest

Nov 15, 2006 13:28 PST

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By CARLA K. JOHNSON and MARILYNN MARCHIONE (Associated Press Writers)

 

Posted Nov 15, 2006

 

Eating red meat may raise a woman's risk of a common type of breast

cancer, and vitamin supplements will do little if anything to

protect her heart, two new studies suggest.

 

Women who ate more than 1 1/2 servings of red meat per day were

almost twice as likely to develop hormone-related breast cancer as

those who ate fewer than three portions per week, one study found.

 

The other - one of the longest and largest tests of whether

supplements of various vitamins can prevent heart problems and

strokes in high-risk

women - found that the popular pills do no good, although there were

hints that women with the highest risk might get some benefit from

vitamin C.

 

The meat study was published in Monday's Archives of Internal

Medicine.

The vitamin study was presented at an American Heart Association

conference in Chicago. Both were led by doctors at Harvard Medical

School and were aimed at two diseases women most fear and want to

prevent.

 

Antioxidants like vitamins C and E attach to substances that can

damage

cells. Scientists have been testing them for preventing such

diseases as

Alzheimer's and cancer.

 

This is the first large study to test vitamin C alone, not in

combination with E or other vitamins, for heart health, said Dr.

JoAnn

Manson, chief of preventive medicine at Harvard-affiliated Brigham

and

Women's Hospital in Boston, who led the research.

 

More than 8,000 women were randomly assigned to take vitamin C, E or

beta carotene alone or in various combinations for nearly a decade.

An

additional 5,442 women took folic acid and B vitamin supplements for

more than seven years.

 

" Overall, there was minimal evidence of any cardiovascular benefit

of

any of these antioxidants, " and people should not start or continue

taking them for that purpose, Manson said.

 

Among the 3,000 women in the study who had no prior heart disease

but

three or more risk factors for it, those who received vitamin C

alone or

in combination had a 42 percent lower risk of stroke. Smokers taking

C

also had a 48 percent lower risk.

 

Vitamin E may give very small benefits for some women, the study

suggests. Those with prior heart disease had a 12 percent reduction

in

the risk of new heart problems, Manson said.

 

" Many of these subgroup findings are intriguing. However, they need

to

be confirmed in other studies, " Manson said. " We don't want this to

be

interpreted as a conclusive finding. "

 

What does appear conclusive is that folic acid and B vitamins " are

not

effective as preventive agents, " said Dr. Christine Albert, who

presented that portion of the study at the heart meeting on Monday.

These nutrients lower homocysteine, a blood substance thought to

increase heart disease risk, but many studies now call the

importance of

that into question.

 

The meat study was based on observation rather than an experiment.

The

Nurses' Health Study tracked the diets and health of more than

90,000

women who were 26 to 46 years old when they enrolled roughly two

decades

ago.

 

They filled out diet questionnaires in 1991, 1995 and 1999, and were

divided into five groups based on how much red meat they said they

ate.

Researchers checked on their health for 12 years on average and

confirmed breast cancer diagnoses with medical records.

 

Meat consumption was linked to a risk of developing tumors whose

growth

was fueled by estrogen or progesterone - the most common type - but

not

to tumors that grow independently of these hormones.

 

The women who ate more red meat were more likely to smoke and be

overweight, but when the researchers took those factors into

account,

they still saw that red meat was linked with an increased risk of

breast

cancer.

 

Earlier studies have found that obesity raises the risk of breast

cancer

and that red meat raises the risk of colorectal cancer.

 

" Our study may give another motivation to reduce red meat intake, "

said

study co-author Eunyoung Cho.

 

However, Dr. Anne McTiernan of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research

Center in Seattle cautioned that the findings rely on women's recall

of

what they ate - an inexact way to measure diet.

 

" A 16-ounce steak and a three-ounce piece of meat are counted the

same.

People are horrible at determining what is a real serving, " said

McTiernan, author of " Breast Fitness, " a book on reducing cancer

risk.

 

It may be wise to cut down on red meat because of its fat and

calorie

content, McTiernan said, but " this isn't a reason to become a

vegetarian

if you weren't planning to do that already. "

 

Nov 14, 2006

 

 

 

On the Net:

 

 

 

Archives: http://www.archinternmed.com

 

 

 

Vitamin information:

http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/vitamins.html

 

 

 

http://www.alternativemedicine.com

 

JoAnn Guest

mrsjo-

www.geocities.com/mrsjoguest/Diets