Sugary Drinks, 'Bad' Carbs Tied to Breast, Prostate Cancers
By Amy Norton
HealthDay Reporter
TUESDAY, April 5, 2016 (HealthDay News) -- People who consume a lot of processed carbohydrates -- think snack foods and sweets -- and sugary drinks may face heightened risks of breast and prostate cancers, a new study suggests.
Researchers said the study, reported Tuesday at the American Society for Nutrition annual meeting in San Diego, does not prove that "bad" carbs cause cancer.
"The carbohydrate quality of your diet matters for a number of reasons," said Makarem, a Ph.D. candidate in nutrition at New York University.
In general, health experts already recommend limiting sugary drinks and processed carbohydrates, and eating more fruits, vegetables, legumes, fiber-rich whole grains and "good" unsaturated fats.
So the new findings -- considered preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed medical journal -- add more weight to that advice, Makarem said.
She pointed, in particular, to the link her team found between sugar-sweetened drinks (both soda and fruit juice) and prostate cancer risk. Compared with men who never drank sugary beverages, those who had them a few times a week showed more than triple the risk of developing prostate cancer.
And that was with other factors -- including obesity, smoking and other diet habits -- taken into account, Makarem said.
Still, it is difficult to weed out the effects of particular diet habits on cancer risk, said Marji McCullough, strategic director of nutritional epidemiology for the American Cancer Society.
"Few dietary factors apart from alcohol and/or obesity have been consistently related to postmenopausal breast cancer and prostate cancer," McCullough said.
