New research highlights the link between burgers and breast cancer. Photo / Getty
New research highlights the link between burgers and breast cancer. Photo / Getty
Teenage girls with a taste for burgers, fries, and shakes are far more likely to get pre-menopausal breast cancer, new research reveals.
A diet high in sugar, carbohydrates, processed meats and margarine is known to drive up inflammation levels, increasing anyone's risk of cancer and heart disease, reported target="_blank">The Daily Mail.
However, a new study shows it is particularly damaging for young women at a time when their breasts are developing.
"During adolescence and early adulthood, the mammary gland is rapidly developing and is therefore particularly susceptible to lifestyle factors," explains lead author Dr Karin Michels at the University of California, Los Angeles.
"It is [therefore] important to consume a diet rich in vegetables, fruit, whole grains, nuts, seeds, and legumes and to avoid soda consumption and a high intake of sugar, refined carbohydrates, and red and processed meats."
For this study, Michels and colleagues used data from 45,204 women enrolled in the Nurses' Health Study II who had completed a food frequency questionnaire in 1998, when they were ages 33-52, about their diet during high school.
Unfortunate news for those women who love a good burger. Photo / Getty
Adult diet was assessed first using a food frequency questionnaire in 1991, when participants were ages 27-44, and then every four years after that.
Each woman's diet was given an inflammatory score using a method previously developed that links diet with inflammatory markers in the blood.
During 22 years of follow-up, 870 of the women who completed the high school food frequency questionnaire were diagnosed with premenopausal breast cancer and 490 were diagnosed with postmenopausal breast cancer.
When women were divided into five groups based on the inflammatory score of their adolescent diet, those in the highest score group had a 35 percent higher risk for premenopausal breast cancer relative to those in the lowest score group.
When the same analysis was done based on early adulthood diet, those in the highest inflammatory score group had a 41 percent higher risk for premenopausal breast cancer relative to those in the lowest score group.
Diet inflammatory score was not associated with overall breast cancer incidence or postmenopausal breast cancer.
Lifestyle factors particularly effect women in adolescence when their breasts are developing. Photo / Getty
"Our results suggest that a habitual diet that promotes chronic inflammation when consumed during adolescence or early adulthood may indeed increase the risk of breast cancer in younger women before menopause," said Michels.
"About 12 percent of women in the United States develop breast cancer in their lifetimes," she added.
"However, each woman's breast cancer risk is different based on numerous factors, including genetic predisposition, demographics, and lifestyle."
"Our study suggests that a habitual adolescent/early adulthood diet that promotes chronic inflammation may be another factor that impacts an individual woman's risk."
According to Michels, it is important to note that although this is an association study, it is not feasible to perform a causal study.
That would require randomizing individuals to a particular diet for a long period of time and following them for decades.
She also explained that the main limitations of the current study are that diet during adolescence was recalled by the participants at a later date and that the researchers did not have adolescent or early adulthood measurements of blood markers of inflammation in this study.
