Risky Business - Brief Article

Vegetarian Times, Oct, 2000 by Lauren Messina

In an attempt to better understand breast cancer, researchers are constantly evaluating the laundry list of known risk factors, which include smoking, alcohol consumption, obesity, lack of exercise, family history, age and stress. And research into two of these factors, age and diet, have yielded some interesting findings.

A recent study conducted at the University of Toronto Mount Sinai Hospital found a strong connection between breast cancer mortality rates and high levels of insulin, a hormone that is naturally secreted from the pancreas to help digest food and regulate blood sugar levels. After studying 535 women with breast cancer, Pamela Goodwin, M.D., discovered that those with high levels of insulin were more likely to die from the disease. Insulin attaches itself to cells and helps them grow. This is not a problem in the case of healthy cells, but the hormone also has the same effect on cancerous cells, which means that higher levels of insulin could translate into accelerated cancer growth, Goodwin explains. Because insulin is secreted proportionally to the amount of calories and carbohydrates you consume, make sure no more than 50 percent of your calories come from carbs, and try not to consume over 500 calories at one sitting.

Research into a less controllable factor, age, has found that although the risk of breast cancer statistically increases as we age, older women who contract the disease actually have a lower chance of dying from it than do their younger counterparts. The reason is twofold. Removing a cancerous tumor and the tissue around it is common in breast cancer treatment. But younger women (in their 20s and 30s) are more likely to try to save the breast or restore it cosmetically. This increases the chance that the cancer will return because less of the tissue has been removed. The second explanation, according to doctors from the Rocky Mountain Cancer Centers in Aurora, Colo., is that as women get older, tumors grow less aggressively. The researchers have found that women who contract the disease after the age of 70 are likely to live just as long as their peers who do not have the disease.