WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - A new study found that women who eat a lot of ultra-processed foods (UPFs) are about 1.5 times more likely to develop pre-cancerous polyps before age 50 than women who eat healthier diets.
'The vast majority of these polyps do not become bowel cancer. But at the same time, we know the vast majority of bowel cancers we see in young people arise from these precursor lesions,' said lead author Dr Andrew Chan.
For the study, researchers looked at the diets and endoscopy records of more than 29,000 women in the U.S., using over 20 years of health data to see how their health changed over time.
By June 2015, when all the women had reached age 50, doctors had found 1,189 cases of early-onset adenomas, a type of pre-cancerous polyp, and 1,598 cases of another type called serrated lesions.
After accounting for factors like BMI, smoking, and activity levels, the women who ate the most ultra-processed foods had a 45 percent higher risk of developing early-onset adenomas.
However, the study has some limitations as it relied on people remembering what they ate. Moreover, classifying foods as ultra-processed foods can be tricky, and the research did not directly study bowel cancer. It also cannot prove that ultra-processed foods directly cause polyps.
'It doesn't suggest that if you eat UPFs, that you are inevitably going to develop cancer. That's certainly not our message,' he said. 'But it's a piece of the puzzle in terms of what might be driving underlying cancer rates.'
The team noted that the findings would likely apply to men as well, but more research is needed.
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