Saturated fats may foster lung cancer.Lung cancer lung cancer, cancer that originates in the tissues of the lungs. Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death in the United States in both men and women. Like other cancers, lung cancer occurs after repeated insults to the genetic material of the cell. claims more lives in the United States United States, officially United States of America, republic (2005 est. pop. 295,734,000), 3,539,227 sq mi (9,166,598 sq km), North America. The United States is the world's third largest country in population and the fourth largest country in area. than any other malignancy. Though smoking poses the single greatest risk, studies have suggested that other factors, including dietary fat, may predispose pre·dis·pose v. To make susceptible, as to a disease. people to lung cancer. But because most such studies contained large numbers of smokers, data on diet's role have proved confusing at best (SN: 10/12/91, p.237). Now, researchers with the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Md., and the Missouri Department of Health in Columbia have entered the fray with an analysis of lung-cancer risks in non-smokers. While reinforcing concerns about fat, their study highlights several new risks and contradicts previously reported associations with factors such as dietary cholesterol. Michael C.R. Alavanja and his coworkers surveyed 1,450 female non-smokers age 30 to 84. Of these, 429 had been diagnosed with lung cancer between 1986 and 1991. The researchers interviewed each of these women at least once and surveyed in detail their eating habits four years previously (before any cancer might have changed consumption patterns). The 20 percent of women who ate the most saturated fat saturated fat, any solid fat that is an ester of glycerol and a saturated fatty acid. The molecules of a saturated fat have only single bonds between carbon atoms; if double bonds are present in the fatty acid portion of the molecule, the fat is said to be faced more than six times the risk of developing lung cancer as the 20 percent who ate the least. This rate "was greater than expected," based on earlier studies, Alavanja's team reports in the Dec. 1 JOURNAL of THE NATIONAL CANCER INSTITUTE. Moreover, in women with high-saturated-fat diets, the risk of adenocarcinoma adenocarcinoma: see neoplasm. - a cancer not strongly linked to smoking but accounting for half the cancers in this study-was more than 11 times the rate observed in women with diets low in this fat. While previous studies had hinted at a protective effect of fruits and vegetables, the new study found that the more citrus fruit and juice a woman consumed, the greater her chance of developing lung cancer. The study also identified a new class of protective foods: Women eating the most beans and peas had a 40 percent lower lung-cancer risk than those eating the least. Though fat is an established tumor promoter tumor promoter Cocarcinogen A substance, often lipid-soluble, that has no intrinsic carcinogenic potential, but which, when applied repeatedly, amplifies cancer-inducing effects of other (initiator) substances. See Antipromoter. Cf Tumor initiator. in animals, no study - even this one - has proved that fat affects lung-cancer risk, notes Laurence N. Kolonel of the Cancer Research Center of Hawaii in Honolulu. Indeed, he notes in an editorial accompanying the new paper, fat could serve merely as a marker for some other risk, such as the carcinogenic carcinogenic having a capacity for carcinogenesis. heterocyclic amines that form when red meat is cooked |
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