Cooked food 'can cause ovarian or womb cancer in women'
London (PTI): You can't avoid ovarian or womb cancer. But you can reduce the risk of the disease by eating a healthy diet -- just make sure the foods aren't overcooked.
Researchers in Europe have carried out a study and found that a common chemical, known as acrylamide, caused by frying, roasting or grilling can double the chances of the cancers in women, 'The Daily Telegraph' reported here on Monday.
Acrylamide is found in cooked foods such as bread, breakfast cereals, coffee and also meat and potatoes roasted, fried, baked, grilled or barbecued.
"The study is the first to look at the association between dietary acrylamide intake and cancer in humans," lead researcher Janneke Hogervorst of the Maastricht University in the Netherlands was quoted as saying.
In fact, the researchers came to the conclusion after analysing a study which involved 62,000 women aged between 55 and 70 in the Netherlands. At the start, all the participants completed a questionnaire to estimate their acrylamide intake.
All of them were followed up through the Dutch cancer registries and after 11 years, 327 had developed womb cancer and 300 were diagnosed with ovarian cancer.
The researchers found that women who had eaten 40 mg of acrylamides a day (found, for example in a 32 g pack of crisps) had double the risk of endometrial cancer and ovarian cancer than women in the lowest category.
"It is important that these results are corroborated and confirmed by other studies before far-reaching conclusions can be drawn," Hogervorst was quoted as saying.
The findings have been published in the latest issue of 'Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention' journal.
Sci. & Tech.
