Cooked Food Is Linked To Cancer in Women
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Fresh fears were raised last night over the safety of cooked foods as a wide-ranging study found for the first time that a common chemical caused by frying, roasting, or grilling can double the risk of cancer in women.
Five years ago, scientists sparked a worldwide alert when they disclosed that many household foods contain the substance acrylamide, which was thought to be a probable cause of the disease.
Now a study involving 120,000 people — half of whom were women — has established a direct link between consumption of the chemical and the incidence of ovarian and womb cancer.
Research has shown that acrylamide is found in cooked foods such as bread, breakfast cereals, coffee, and also meat and potatoes which had been fried, baked, roasted, grilled, or barbecued.
The Dutch study found that women who absorbed more acrylamide were twice as likely to develop ovarian or womb cancer as those who ingested a smaller amount.
The higher amount eaten by the women involved was the equivalent to a single packet of potato chips, half a pack of biscuits, or a portion of french fries a day.
The European Union has now advised people to avoid burnt toast or golden-brown fries because they contain higher levels of the substance acrylamide.
They have also recommended eating home-cooked meals that contain much lower amounts of the chemical than processed products, fast food, and restaurant meals.
Britain’s Food Standards Agency welcomed the report and called on consumers to heed the European Union’s advice. However, a spokesman said it was not possible to avoid the chemical entirely.
“This new study supports our current advice and policy, which already assumes that acrylamide has the potential to be a human carcinogen,” a spokesman said. “Since acrylamide forms naturally in a wide variety of cooked foods, it is not possible to have a healthy balanced diet that avoids it.”
The findings from the University of Maastricht, published in the journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers, and Prevention, came only a month after the public was warned about the increased risk of cancer from eating bacon and ham.
It also came as the British government launches a five-year strategy to combat the disease.
The Dutch report relied on the Netherlands Cohort Study, which involved 120,000 people aged between 55 and 70, about 62,000 of them women.
At the start of the study, participants completed a questionnaire that was used to estimate their acrylamide intake.
The participants were followed up through the Dutch cancer registries and after 11 years, 327 had developed endometrial (womb) cancer, 300 were diagnosed with ovarian cancer, and 1,835 suffered breast cancer.
The study found that women who had eaten 40 milligrams of acrylamides a day (found, for example in a 32 gram pack of potato chips) had double the risk of endometrial cancer and ovarian cancer than women in the lowest category.
There was no link found to breast cancer.
Janneke Hogervorst, at the Department of Epidemiology at Maastricht University, said the study was the first to look at the association between dietary acrylamide intake and cancer in humans.
But she warned: “It is important that these results are corroborated and confirmed by other studies before far-reaching conclusions can be drawn.”
About 6,400 women are diagnosed with womb cancer in Britain each year, and 7,000 with ovarian cancer, one of the highest rates in Europe.
The FSA said people should try to have less fried and overcooked food in their diet.
“People should eat a balanced healthy diet which includes plenty of fruit and vegetables, bread, other cereals, and potatoes,” a spokesman said.
When the alarm was raised in 2002, the FSA tested a number of products, including Walkers Crisps, Ryvita crackers, Kellogg’s Rice Crispies, and Pringles potato chips.
They found higher levels of the chemical occurring naturally in the food than international safety limits permitted in the packaging of the product.
Although people fry less food at home, the popularity of fast food means increasing levels are being consumed.
In 2000, charred meat and blackened toast were condemned because other chemicals formed on the burnt food were found to contribute to the risk of cancer.