Eating walnuts reduces breast cancer risk

Eating walnuts reduces breast cancer risk

Eating walnuts may help reduce risk of developing breast cancer, a study sponsored by the American Institute for Cancer Research and the California Walnut Commission suggests.

The study shows mice eating walnuts were less likely to develop breast cancer than mice not eating walnuts. In mice that eventually developed tumors, the tumors were smaller and their development was slower than those found in mice that did not eat walnuts.

Tumors were expected to develop within five months in 100 percent of the laboratory mice used in the study; walnuts in an amount equivalent to two ounces of walnuts for humans delayed the tumors by at least three weeks, Elaine Hardman, at Marshall University School of Medicine, was quoted as saying in a news release by the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR).

The study presented today at the AACR's annual meeting in Denver suggests that omega-3 fatty acids, antioxidants and phytosterols found in walnuts are responsible for the reduced risk of breast cancer in the lab mice.

(Written by David Liu and edited by Heather Kelley)