High sugar diet may increase breast cancer risk: Study
Health Canada and the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation say a controversial breast cancer screening test offered across Canada is not safe or effective at detecting the disease. (QMI Agency)
Having a sweet tooth may increase a woman's risk of breast cancer, a new Canadian study has found.
The researchers studied 776 premenopausal and 779 postmenopausal women. They found postmenopausal women who ate a lot of sweets and premenopausal women who drank a lot of sugar-sweetened beverages had higher breast density.
Women who had more than three servings of sugar-sweetened beverages in a week had a 3% difference in breast density compared to those who did not, the study found.
"We know that the worldwide consumption of sugar has increased and the findings of this study show what effect that type of diet has on breast density, one of the strongest indicators for breast cancer risk," Laval University professor and lead author Caroline Diorio said in a press release.
"As this is an understudied area, we need more research to further understand the health implications of a diet high in sugar."
The study was published Thursday in the journal BMC Public Health.