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A recent study shows that young women and late teenagers that have eaten a high-fiber diet had a lower risk of developing breast cancer.
The study was conducted over a 20-year period had included over 90,000 who had a high-fiber diet during their 20s and late teens. Of these women there was a 16 percent smaller risk of breast cancer than those who had the least amount of fiber. Additionally, these women had a 24 percent smaller risk of getting breast cancer prior to menopause – typically a more aggressive cancer requiring harder treatment.
“We now have evidence that what we feed our children during this period of life is also an important factor in future cancer risk,” said Dr. Walter Willet, leader of the study and an expert on health and nutrition at Harvard’s school of public health. “From many other studies we know that breast tissue is particularly influenced by carcinogens and anticarcinogens during childhood and adolescence,”
The researchers believe that fiber has shown to lower the estrogen hormone, a hormone that has drives breast cancer.
“There is longstanding evidence that dietary fibers may reduce circulating estrogen levels,” Kimberly Blackwell, a breast cancer specialist at the Duke Cancer Center.
The study started in 1991 and included women ages 27 to 44. During this time, the women answered questions about what they were eating. Then in 1998 50 percent of them completed a questionnaire on their eating habits during high school. The women’s fiber intake was calculated with some women eating up to 28 grams of fiber a day while other took in 15 grams a day or less.
The researchers found, twenty years later, that women who said they ate the most fiber (28 grams or more) were less likely to get breast cancer. With each additional 10 grams of fiber intake there was a 13 percent decrease in their breast cancer risk.
Fiber from fruits and vegetables had the greatest effect, the team found.
For women who are ages 50-74 mammograms are recommended every other year.
For more information on breast cancer and fiber intake please visit fucoidan force’s website.
Release ID: 103093