Cutting Carbs Could Cut Breast Cancer Risk After the Menopause
A recent study from the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, states that cutting your carbohydrates may reduce the risk of breast cancer in post menopausal women.
Including super foods like wheatgrass and chia seeds in your diet could reduce the affect carbs have.
Your body requires carbohydrates, as they are an important source of energy. But, and it's a big but, some carbohydrates are better for you than others. Much as we like them, many processed foods like white bread and white flour, white rice and pasta etc, have most of their fibre and nutrients removed from them, leaving behind a lot of starch and sugar, that your body absorbed easily.
There are two different ways to measure the effect that carbohydrate foods have on our blood sugar levels:
The first method is called the Glycaemic Index, or simply GI. It uses a scale from 1 to 100, to illustrate how much the food is increasing our blood sugar levels. The bigger the GI number, the greater increase in blood sugar, and the greater the risks of many serious diseases such as heart disease and diabetes.
The second way of measuring, is the Glycaemic Load or GL. The GL includes within it, the GI of the food and in addition, includes the overall amount of the foods carbohydrate.
The GL takes into account more factors that the GI when looking at the effects of foods on blood sugar levels, it's considered to be a more reliable.
Higher Glycaemic Load correlated with an increased risk of breast cancer for some women.
The study was spread over 12 years, and looked at the breast cancer risks for a total of 334,849 women, aged between 34 to 66. Their diets were evaluated by the researchers in terms of GI, GL and the total carbohydrate intake.
During the course of the study 11,576 women were diagnosed with breast cancer. The researchers found that postmenopausal women with a high GL and high carbohydrate diet, had a significantly higher risk of breast cancer, when compared with the rest of the group.
The risks of breast cancer were unchanged for other women who were not postmenopausal, but who also had the same high GL and high carbohydrate diet.
The study's authors commented on the research findings saying: "Our results also suggest a potential interaction between fibre intake and glycaemic load and carbohydrates on the risk of breast cancer,".
It's important to choose the right foods, because dietary fibre and healthy fats can both help in slowing down the absorption of carbohydrate into your system, and this in turn helps to lower the overall GL of your diet. By eating healthily with a leaning towards foods with high dietary fibre, it will be easier to keep your blood sugar levels steady.
One way to do this is by taking the wholemeal option, instead of the white option. For example, wholemeal bread, wholemeal pasta, and brown rice. You can also look at adding super foods to your diet. Wheatgrass powder, spirulina and chia seeds can help reduce the GL of a meal.
Including super foods like wheatgrass and chia seeds in your diet could reduce the affect carbs have.
Your body requires carbohydrates, as they are an important source of energy. But, and it's a big but, some carbohydrates are better for you than others. Much as we like them, many processed foods like white bread and white flour, white rice and pasta etc, have most of their fibre and nutrients removed from them, leaving behind a lot of starch and sugar, that your body absorbed easily.
There are two different ways to measure the effect that carbohydrate foods have on our blood sugar levels:
The first method is called the Glycaemic Index, or simply GI. It uses a scale from 1 to 100, to illustrate how much the food is increasing our blood sugar levels. The bigger the GI number, the greater increase in blood sugar, and the greater the risks of many serious diseases such as heart disease and diabetes.
The second way of measuring, is the Glycaemic Load or GL. The GL includes within it, the GI of the food and in addition, includes the overall amount of the foods carbohydrate.
The GL takes into account more factors that the GI when looking at the effects of foods on blood sugar levels, it's considered to be a more reliable.
Higher Glycaemic Load correlated with an increased risk of breast cancer for some women.
The study was spread over 12 years, and looked at the breast cancer risks for a total of 334,849 women, aged between 34 to 66. Their diets were evaluated by the researchers in terms of GI, GL and the total carbohydrate intake.
During the course of the study 11,576 women were diagnosed with breast cancer. The researchers found that postmenopausal women with a high GL and high carbohydrate diet, had a significantly higher risk of breast cancer, when compared with the rest of the group.
The risks of breast cancer were unchanged for other women who were not postmenopausal, but who also had the same high GL and high carbohydrate diet.
The study's authors commented on the research findings saying: "Our results also suggest a potential interaction between fibre intake and glycaemic load and carbohydrates on the risk of breast cancer,".
It's important to choose the right foods, because dietary fibre and healthy fats can both help in slowing down the absorption of carbohydrate into your system, and this in turn helps to lower the overall GL of your diet. By eating healthily with a leaning towards foods with high dietary fibre, it will be easier to keep your blood sugar levels steady.
One way to do this is by taking the wholemeal option, instead of the white option. For example, wholemeal bread, wholemeal pasta, and brown rice. You can also look at adding super foods to your diet. Wheatgrass powder, spirulina and chia seeds can help reduce the GL of a meal.
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