High Carb Diet Linked to Breast Cancer

I found this information this morning and thought it was very important to share with you.  Breast cancer runs rampant in my wife's family.  Her mother and both sisters have been stricken with this awful disease.  The article follows.

High-carb diets may increase more than just waistlines. New research suggests they might raise the risk of breast cancer.


Women in Mexico who ate a lot of carbohydrates were more than twice as likely to get breast cancer than those who ate less starch and sugar, scientists found.

The study took place at Instituto Nacional de Salud Publica in Cuernavaca, Mexico. It was funded by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Ministry of Health of Mexico, and the American Institute for Cancer Research. Results were published Friday in the journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention.

Fats, fiber and specific foods have long been studied for their effects on various types of cancer, but few firm links have emerged. Being overweight is known to raise risk, but the new study took that into account and still found greater risk from high carbohydrate consumption.

Scientists think carbs may increase cancer risk by rapidly raising sugar in the blood, which prompts a surge of insulin to be secreted. This causes cells to divide and leads to higher levels of estrogen in the blood, both of which can encourage cancer.

A study earlier this year suggested that high-carb diets modestly raised the risk of colon cancer. Little research has been done on their effect on breast cancer, and results have been mixed. One study last year found greater risk among young women who ate a lot of sweets, especially sodas and desserts.

For this study, researchers enrolled 475 women newly diagnosed with breast cancer and a comparison group of 1,391 healthy women in Mexico City who were matched for age, weight, childbirth trends and other factors that affect the odds of getting the disease.

Women filled out a lengthy food questionnaire widely used in nutrition studies, and were divided into four categories based on how much of their total calories came from carbohydrates.

Those in the top category -- who got 62 percent or more of their calories from carbs -- were 2.22 times more likely to have breast cancer than those in the lowest category, whose carb intake was 52 percent or less of their diet.

"The findings do raise concern about the possible adverse effects of eating lots of carbohydrates," especially for people who have diabetes, insulin resistance or are overweight, Willett said.

"It adds to the information that diet's important" with respect to cancer risk, said John Milner, the National Cancer Institute's chief of nutrition.

"It leads me to believe that healthier carb sources, or at least diets containing fiber, would be less strongly associated with breast cancer," said Marji McCullough, a senior epidemiologist and nutrition expert at the American Cancer Society.

This is me again.  Please don't think I'm trying to scare you into a low carb lifestyle.  I just feel that part of my job here is to provide information coming from new studies that relate to the low carb lifestyle.  I hope that this information is useful and helpful to you.