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Last Updated: Apr 16, 2008 - 5:52:06 PM |
MONDAY April 14, 2008 (foodconsumer.org) -- Eating fewer calories than needed may protect against pancreatic cancer, according to an animal study presented at the 2008 Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research, April 12-16.
Laura M. Lashinger, Ph.D at the University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center and colleagues found calorie restriction by as much as 30 percent dramatically reduced risk of pancreatic lesions.
Pancreatic cancer is a highly deadly cancer, the fourth leading cause of cancer death in both men and women in the United States. No more than 5 percent of patients could have a five-year survival.
Earlier studies have showed calorie restriction - a dietary strategy for preventing or reversing obesity has significant anticancer effects on a variety of cancers.
As obesity is a key risk factor for pancreatic cancer, the researchers wanted to know how a diet that tends to induce obesity would affect the risk.
"It is likely that inflammation may be playing a role," Lashinger said. "Fat tissue is more than simply weight; it produces an inflammatory property that leads to greater risk of cancer and other diseases."
In the current study, Lashinger and colleagues fed three groups of 12 mice three diets with different amounts of calories and fat for 14 weeks. The mice were prone to developing pancreatic cancer.
Within six to eight months, 100 percent mice developed spontaneous pancreatic lesions and died from the disease.
But the researchers found mice on the calorie-restricted diet had only 7.5 percent of them developed lesions compared to 45 percent in those on the overweight diet and 57.5 percent among those on the diet that induced obesity.
The lesions if they ever developed were found smaller in mice that ate the calorie restricted diet than that found in those on the overweight and obesity diets.
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