Cancer
Acrylamide linked to elevated breast cancer risk
By David Liu, Ph.D.
Jan 22, 2008 - 9:35:04 PM

TUESDAY JAN 22, 2008 (foodconsumer.org) -- A new study led by Henrik Frandsen, a senior scientist at the Technical University of Denmark and the Danish Cancer Society and colleagues showed that high dietary intake of acrylamide may increase the risk of breast cancer.
 
The amount of acrylamide found in fried and baked food products has been considered safe.  The industry and the government have said no evidence suggests this carcinogen found in foods poses any cancer risk in humans.
 
The epidemiologic study of 374 postmenopausal women with breast cancer and 374 women without cancer showed that the risk of breast cancer doubles in women with a tenfold increase in the acrylamide-haemoglobin level.
 
This magnitude of increase in the acrylamide-haemoglobin level was found in women who had the highest exposure to the toxic chemical when compared to those who had the lowest exposure.
 
The association was strongest for estrogen receptor positive breast cancer, according to the researchers who published their study in the International Journal of Cancer.
 
Acrylamide is a carcinogen produced in baked, roasted, fried and toasted starch foods.  It was found in processed food first by Swedish researchers in 2002.  
 
Although there has been doubt that this carcinogen at a dose found in the foods has any effect on humans, it's been proved that this carcinogen causes cancer in mice.
 
Dietary acrylamide has been already linked to an increased risk of endometrial and ovarian cancer in a study of 62,573 women published last year by Janneke Hogervorst and co-workers from the University of Maastricht.
 
Breast cancer is diagnosed in about 190,000 women each year in the United States and kills about 50,000 women in the country.