foodconsumer.org: Eating walnuts reduces breast cancer risk

Eating walnuts reduces breast cancer risk
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admin on 04/22/2009 12:21:00
 
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)