Can Eating Peanut Butter Cut Breast Cancer Risk in Later Life?

 

Eating peanut butter regularly as a preteen and teen girl appears to decrease the risk of developing benign breast disease as an adult, new research has found.
Benign breast disease -- noncancerous changes in the breast tissue -- is a risk factor for breast cancer, experts agree.
The researchers followed more than 9,000 females, beginning when they were aged 9 to 15 in 1996, until 2010, when they were young women. Eating peanut butter three days a week reduced the risk of developing benign breast disease by 39 percent, said Dr. Graham Colditz, senior study author.
"I think this gives us enormous hope there are strategies we could be following to help prevent breast cancer that we haven't capitalized on yet," said Colditz, the associate director for cancer prevention and control at the Siteman Cancer Center at Barnes-Jewish Hospital and Washington University School of Medicine, in St. Louis.
The study, published online Sept. 17 in Breast Cancer Research and Treatment, was funded by the Breast Cancer Research Foundation and the U.S. National Institutes of Health.
Benign breast disease is fairly common, and a known risk factor for breast cancer, Colditz said. Before menopause, "about one in four women have a benign lesion, confirmed by biopsy," he said. "It's very clear there is a strong link between the benign lesion and the subsequent risk of invasive breast cancer."
Depending on the characteristics of the benign lesion, he said, benign breast disease could increase breast cancer risk by threefold.
The study participants were part of a long-term, ongoing study on the health effects of diet and exercise in young people. They filled out questionnaires about their diet annually from 1996 until 2001, then four more times until 2010. They also reported if they had been diagnosed with benign breast disease. In all, 112 women said they had.
The researchers looked at foods with vegetable protein and vegetable fats, then focused on individual foods, including peanut butter, peanuts or other nuts, beans and corn.
A daily serving of any of these foods was linked with a 68 percent reduced risk of benign breast disease. At age 14, a daily serving of any of those foods was linked with a 66 percent lower risk of benign breast disease, and girls who had about three servings a week of peanut butter had a 39 percent lower risk.
The researchers found a link between eating peanut butter and lower breast disease risk, not a cause-and-effect relationship, and Colditz said he can't explain yet why the peanut butter seems protective.
"It could well be the protein," he said. In previous studies, the researchers have looked at other factors of a healthy diet, such as milk consumption, and their role in breast health. The peanut butter finding, he said, is strong, even when taking into account an overall healthy diet. "It's not something we can make go away," he said.
For now, Colditz said, the take-home message is for teens and preteens to substitute peanuts and peanut butter for less-healthy snacks such as cookies.
Another expert who reviewed the findings said the study is well done.
Dr. Steven Chen, an associate clinical professor of breast and endocrine surgery at the City of Hope Comprehensive Cancer Center, in Duarte, Calif., said that while lowering benign breast disease does lower breast cancer risk, many other factors increase breast cancer risk besides benign breast disease.
"It's always good to lower any risk [of breast cancer] you can, but whether peanut butter intake will have a major impact on developing breast cancer down the line, only time will tell," Chen said.
As for how to explain the link? "It's hard to say at this point," Chen said, adding that in countries where less meat is eaten, less breast cancer risk is reported. Based on the study findings, he said, teen girls and preteens "shouldn't avoid peanut butter and nuts if they are not allergic." Getting some protein through vegetables, which was also looked at in the study, is a good idea, too, he added.

Cholesterol Drugs May Boost Your Gums' Health, Too

 

The statin medications you take for your heart may have an unexpected side benefit: They help reduce inflammation of the gums, according to new research.

Using advanced imaging techniques, researchers were able to see that when people with gum disease took higher doses of the commonly prescribed cholesterol-lowering drugs, their gum inflammation decreased.
During the 12-week study, the researchers also looked for evidence of inflammation or hardening of the blood vessels (atherosclerotic disease) in the study volunteers, and they found that reduced gum inflammation was correlated with improved blood vessel health.
"There is a building, growing body of literature that draws a line between gum disease and atherosclerotic disease. In our study, benefits in the gums correlated with benefits in the arteries," said the study's senior author, Dr. Ahmed Tawakol, co-director of the Cardiac Imaging Trials Program at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston. "People with [gum disease] and atherosclerotic disease should likely be that much more vigilant in treating their gum disease."
The study was published online Oct. 2 in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. Funding was provided by drug manufacturer Merck and Co., which does not produce the statin used in this study.
Currently, statins are prescribed to lower high levels of "bad" cholesterol, also known as LDL cholesterol. When there's too much LDL cholesterol, it can start to build up on blood vessel walls, leading to hardening of the arteries.
In the United States, more than 30 million people take statins, and as many as 200 million people worldwide take these cholesterol-lowering medications, according to a journal editorial accompanying the study. Periodontal disease (or gum disease) affects nearly half of U.S. adults.
According to editorial author Dr. Michael Blaha, director of clinical research at the Johns Hopkins Ciccarone Center for the Prevention of Heart Disease in Baltimore, a "consistent stream of data" shows that statins have benefits beyond their cholesterol-lowering properties.
"There are three big categories of how statins likely exert their effects: lowering LDL, reducing inflammation, and by modulating plaque," said Blaha.
The current study lends support to the idea that statins can reduce inflammation. It included 83 adults who had risk factors for, or already had, atherosclerosis. They were randomly assigned to take either 10 or 80 milligrams of a statin called atorvastatin (brand name Lipitor) for three months.
Everyone underwent imaging at the start of the study, again after four weeks and then at 12 weeks.
At the end of the study, the investigators had complete data on 59 people. They found a significant reduction in gum inflammation for the people taking 80 mg of atorvastatin compared to those on the 10-mg dose. Changes began as early as four weeks after people started taking the higher-dose drug.
There was a more significant reduction in gum inflammation for people who had more serious gum disease at the start of the study and took a higher dose of the statin. The researchers also found that a reduction in gum inflammation correlated with reduced blood vessel inflammation.
"It was really those on the higher-dose statins that had the benefit," noted Tawakol. But, "I would not recommend the use of statins outside the current guidelines," he added. "We see this trial more as a proof-of-principle trial. Our findings need to be confirmed in a larger clinical trial."
Still, he said, there's little harm in telling people to take care of gum disease. "Patients with known heart disease and known gum disease should have their gum disease evaluated and treated," Tawakol said.

Daily Walk May Cut Your Breast Cancer Risk

FRIDAY, Oct. 4 (HealthDay News) -- Older women who walk every day may reduce their risk of developing breast cancer. And those who exercise vigorously may get even more protection, according to new research.
The study of more than 73,000 postmenopausal women found that walking at a moderate pace for an hour a day was associated with a 14 percent reduced breast cancer risk, compared to leading a sedentary lifestyle. An hour or more of daily strenuous physical activity was associated with a 25 percent reduced risk, the study found.
This is welcome news for women who aren't very athletic.
"The nice message here is, you don't have to go out and run a marathon to lower your breast cancer risk," said study researcher Alpa Patel, senior epidemiologist at the American Cancer Society, which funded the study.
"Go for a nice, leisurely walk an hour a day to lower risk," Patel advised.
Breast cancer is the leading cancer among women. In the United States, about one in eight women will develop the disease in her lifetime.

When they enrolled in 1992, the average age was nearly 63. The women completed a questionnaire about medical, environmental and demographic factors at the start and repeated the reports every two years between 1997 and 2009. The study participants also reported on their physical activity and time spent sitting, including watching television and reading, and reported any diagnosis of breast cancer.
During the follow-up, which was roughly 14 years, 4,760 women developed breast cancer.
The researchers compared the exercise habits of women who developed breast cancer and those who did not. About 9 percent never participated in physical activity, while about half reported walking as their sole activity.
Those who walked seven hours or more a week, even without engaging in other recreational physical activity, reaped protective benefits compared to those who walked three hours or less a week.
The message is encouraging, Patel said.
However, the study only found an association between moderate exercise and reduced breast cancer risk, not a direct cause-and-effect relationship.
While other studies have found that exercise lowered risk of breast cancer more for women with a lower body mass index (BMI) -- a calculation of body fat based on height and weight -- this study found the effect held regardless of BMI, weight gain in adulthood or use of postmenopausal hormone therapy.
Other studies have found a link between time spent sitting and breast cancer risk, but Patel's group did not find this link.
This is "a good news study for women," said another cancer expert, Dr. Laura Kruper, who was not involved with the research.
The findings add to the accumulating evidence about exercise lowering breast cancer risk, and present a goal that is reachable for most women, said Kruper, co-director of the breast cancer program at the City of Hope Cancer Center in Duarte, Calif.
"This is something nearly every woman can do," Kruper said of exercising moderately for an hour daily.
"This is not running a marathon," she said.
Her advice to sedentary women who want to reduce their breast cancer risk: "If you get off the couch and walk around, it would help."
Why does exercise appear to lower breast cancer risk? The mechanism is mostly hormonal, Patel said. Breast cancer risk is affected by lifetime exposure to estrogen, with more exposure increasing risk. Older, physically active women have lower levels of estrogen than their sedentary peers.
Besides exercising, women who want to reduce breast cancer risk should maintain a healthy body weight, Patel said, and if they drink, they should limit alcoholic beverages to no more than one daily.