Preschool diet linked to later breast cancer risk By Michelle Rizzo
Mon Mar 27, 1:21 PM ET

The diet of preschoolers may influence the risk of breast cancer during adulthood, according to a Boston-based group of investigators.

Dr. Karin B. Michels, of Harvard Medical School, and her associates conducted a study that included 582 breast cancer patients plus a comparison group of 1,569 healthy "controls," who were enrolled in the Nurses' Health Study and the Nurses' Health Study II.

The researchers used a 30-item food frequency questionnaire to obtain early diet information from the mothers of the nurses when they were 3 to 5 years old. The findings are published in the February issue of the International Journal of Cancer.

Women who frequently consumed French fries at preschool age had an increased risk of breast cancer. The increased risk of breast cancer for one additional serving of French fries per week was 27 percent. Consumption of whole milk was linked to a slightly decreased breast cancer risk -- for each additional glass of whole milk per day, the risk decreased by 10 percent. No association was found between nutrient levels and the risk of breast cancer.

"For us breast cancer researchers this indicates that we are on the right track to research earlier periods of a woman's life than we previously have done in the search for breast cancer risk factors," Michels told Reuters Health. "It seems that childhood diet may be important and maybe even more important than an adult woman's diet with respect to later life risk of breast cancer."

However, Michels cautioned against over-interpreting the results. "First of all, we would like to see these findings confirmed in other studies," she said. "Secondly, this was a case-control study and the mothers of the nurses knew whether their daughters had developed breast cancer or not, which may or may not have influenced their reporting, but we must not lose sight of this fact."

SOURCE: International Journal of Cancer, February 2006.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060327...0BHNlYwN 0bWE-

Today's kids are doomed. I'll bet that the average kid eats, on average, at least one serving of french fries per day. I'll bet at least two or three times per week it is two servings per day.

I don't no if they will be doomed... cancer rates are increasing but cancer deaths are decreasing. I'd say by the time these kids grow up we should be able to control cancer much more easily because of advances in Biotechnology, Nanotechnology and so on..

Who has a higher quality of life?

Those that are healthy

OR

those that are battling cancer?

Are you implying that we should send a message to kids to go ahead and eat all crap they want, smoke all the cigarettes they want, drink all the alcohol they want -- because we have medicine to help you once you get sick from it?

I don't care how great the health cures are.

We need to find out what causes disease and then clearly communicate to people what the causes are so that they can steps to avoid health problems.

Granted 20% of the people won't care and will keep on over eating bad foods, over smoking, and over drinking. But that is their decision to make.

Now THAT I'd like to see some data for.



They've been telling us this for 50 years now.

How can these people remember what they ate at preschool??? I can hardly remember what I ate last week.

Uh ... frogs?

(get it -- frog breath)

Frogs are for kissing - not eating!

Umm no I wasn't, how did you get all that from what little I said on this topic.



Good thing that not everyone thinks like you...



Cancer deaths decline for first time in 70 years
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11239736/



So what? there are some really promising therapies that are either in clinical trials right now or will be in the next year or so. Some promising treatments are Nanoparticles, which in mice completely 100% destroy the cancerous cells without harming healthy ones. These are a new generation of targetted based therapies that come with little side effects. One method of nanoparticles finding their target is to bind folic acid to the nanoparticle. Cancer cells have much more folate receptors than do normal healthy cells. Once these Nanoparticles have binded to their target then this will show up using some imaging technology that will detect the particles in the body. Using a Near infra red light scientists are able to locate (nanoparticles glow) and destroy tumors by heating them up.

Also nanoparticles can carry chemo drugs that were too lethal to use before, because now no healthy cells are damaged.

Here are some really interesting breakthroughs:

Nanoparticles deliver cancer breakthrough
http://www.newscientisttech.com/cha...chnology/dn7540



Fashioning Nanoshells
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/scienc...nanoshells.html



Nanocell's double hit on cancer
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4715739.stm



So technologies like this are certainly going to revolutionize cancer thearpies and other

Latest updates - http://nano.cancer.gov/

Nanoshell animation - http://nano.cancer.gov/resource_cen..._nanoshells.asp

VIDEO JOURNEY INTO NANOTECHNOLOGY - http://nano.cancer.gov/resource_cen...deo_journey.asp

Check that one out !

Yes, some of the new therapies look promising. Just the same, they've still been telling us they'd have a cancer cure real soon now for at least 50 years. I know. I heard them

I know that it's fun to lump prevention and detection in with treatment and claim that treatments are working. This is always how the American Cancer Society has spun their news. All recent DATA I've seen makes it seem like treatment continues to be the failure that it has always been.



We're just tired of hearing this kind of thing with nothing to show for it. Fifty years ago, these same folks were just as excited about chemo and radiation, with decades now of increasing deaths. We'd love to see an effective treatment for cancer, but it's hard to stop laughing at cutting-edge claims when the last round of cutting-edge claims were such a big joke.

If we should be more excited about these new treatments, please tell us why, and try not to make it sound like the claptrap we heard 50 years ago. And hey, don't forget: just like 50 years ago, these people are pitching for money for their research, now using news stories as a marketing vehicle. History has shown that researchers will say anything to get funded. Let's not fall for their fantasies a second time. Make them tell us why.

While I sort of agree with these sentiments, if we don't pay for cancer research, we'll still be paying for cancer itself. It doesn't seem to want to go away. Penicillin was a fantasy once upon a time. So was nuclear power. Heck, I'd be willing to bet that harnessing fire was considered a fantasy at one point. Eventually, cancer will fall. Maybe not in 50 years, although with all the work on genes and gene therapy, it wouldn't surprise me. But we're going to be chasing a lot of bad leads before we hit the right one. And in the meantime, I can think of a lot worse things to spend money on.

I said





You don't think like this ?!?! I feel sorry for you.

Etcetera, etcetera.

You can post all the links you want, but as it stands NOW, there is no real CURE for the things you're talking about.

A hope, yes. A possibility for the future, maybe. A cure? No.

Just because you can get wonderful plastic surgery to cover scars and burns doesn't mean you should run out and stick your face on a red-hot burner.

.muse.

Seems like we're paying for cancer either way.



And so maybe we need to take the hint.



Probably not the best examples; we've not had much ground breaking in the areas of disease control or energy resources since either of these discoveries.



I can think of a lot better things to spend money on, too. We've got a pretty good idea of the environmental factors that cause cancer. Like the original news story, we're finding that certain behaviors correlate to cancer risk. You sound like you're making the argument that if we just had some magic, then we could continue to do all of the things that are killing us.

Some people here are dreaming of the day that gene therapy will allow us to eat Twinkies and Coke all day and never gain an ounce. Would it be great if nanotechnology let us all go back to smoking again? Or maybe we could take a pill that fixed our skin so that we could work in the sun all day long? We could start using asbestos again?

What else could we spend the billions that we're going to spend on nanomagic? What else could researchers be working on, those same cancer researchers that, up to this point, have nothing to show for their efforts?

Maybe telling folks to lay off the fries is the best help we can offer, just like, up to this point, telling folks to stop smoking is the best help we can offer.