Fruity youth can help curb cancer
the risk of cancer in later life, according to a long-term study of
UK eating habits.
A childhood diet rich in fruit may protect against the development of certain cancers in later life, according to the findings of a long term study of almost 4,000 people in the UK.
Published in this month's Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, the findings are based on a 60 year follow up of a group of people who had completed a week's household food inventory during the 1930s (the so-called Boyd Orr cohort). The original study was part of a wider investigation into the family diet, health, and social circumstances of 1,350 families in 16 rural and urban areas of England and Scotland, which was carried out between 1937 and 1939.
The researchers successfully traced almost 4,000 men and women who had been children at the time of the original survey through health service records. Notifications of death and cancer recorded up to the end of July 2000 were assessed.
Up to July 2000, 483 cases of cancer had been diagnosed in the study group, the most common of which were lung and bowel cancers in men and breast, lung and bowel cancers in women.
The researchers took into account age, gender and energy intake, high levels of which are associated with an increased risk of cancer. And they found that the higher the fruit consumption during childhood, the less likely was the risk of developing cancer as an adult. Increasing fruit intake was also associated with lower death rates from all causes, although the evidence was not as strong.
Surprisingly, there was no link between cooked vegetables and cancer risk, which might be attributable to the prolonged boiling of vegetables and the subsequent depletion of micronutrients that was the norm in the 1930s, suggest the authors.
The researchers investigated the influence of vitamins C, E and beta carotene separately, but found little evidence that specific vitamins were responsible for the apparently protective effects of fruit.
