Fish Oil Lowers Breast Cancer Risk

Since I’ll take any excuse to post more about the fantastic health benefits of fish oils, here’s some news on a study showing that women who take fish oils supplements are at a lower risk for breast cancer.

The study followed 35,000 women over the course of six years.  At the end of this time, the researchers found that those women taking fish oil supplements were 32% less likely to have breast cancer.

One of the interesting findings of this study is that the protective effects of fish oil seemed to be limited to a type of breast cancer called invasive ductal carcinoma.  IDC is the most common form of breast cancer and is maglinant in type.  About 55% of breast cancer is invasive ductal carcinoma.

The prognosis for this type of breast cancer is highly variable and depends on exactly how big the tumor is, how much the cancerous cells have travelled into the lymph nodes and bloodstream, and some other hormonal factors.  Of course, the bottom line is, like any other form of cancer, if you can avoid it, you don’t want it.

That ought to be the American Cancer Society’s T-shirt slogan:  Cancer.  You Don’t Want It.  Seriously.

Unfortunately, this study isn’t very specific and is based on self-report, which as I’ve mentioned in previous posts, is notoriously unreliable.  Plus, there wasn’t really any way to tell what sort of dosage these women were taking- any fish oil use was considered the same.

So, what this sort of study really tells us is that something’s going on, but we’re not sure what, and we need to take a closer look.  Fortunately, some Harvard researchers are going to do just that and study the effect of fish oils on cancer.

In any case, fish oils are a supremely healthy addition to your wellness habits for many other reasons than cancer- just take a look in the categories section under “supplements” and you’ll see I have a whole section devoted to fish oils.  Remember, the basic wellness dose is between one and two grams a day total of EPA and DHA (the active ingredients in fish oils).

Stay healthy!

Source article: http://health.yahoo.net/news/s/hsn/fishoilsupplementslinkedtolowerriskofbreastcancerstudy