August 12, 2019 – Inflammatory Diet and Cancer

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Anchor lead: Can eating a diet that reduces inflammation reduce your risk for cancer? Elizabeth Tracey reports

Foods that promote inflammation can increase your risk for cancer while those that decrease inflammation can reduce it. That’s the conclusion of a Spanish study following several thousand people over many years. William Nelson, director of the Kimmel Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins, explains.

Nelson: What they did is they took a dietary pattern and defined it an inflammatory, refined carbohydrates, red or processed meats and saturated fats, that combination. They also tried to define an antioxidant diet. This one had vegetables and legumes and fruits and nuts. What they found was an increased risk, 90+ percent increased risk for colorectal cancer, a small but not significant increased risk for breast cancer, for intake of an inflammatory type of diet.  :30

Nelson says cancer risk notwithstanding, an antioxidant diet is also known to decrease your risk of diabetes and heart disease. At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.