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- <text id=92TT2467>
- <title>
- Nov. 02, 1992: Relax, Mrs. Sprat
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1992
- Nov. 02, 1992 Bill Clinton's Long March
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- THE WEEK, Page 23
- HEALTH & SCIENCE
- Relax, Mrs. Sprat
- </hdr><body>
- <p> High-fat, low-fiber diets may not cause breast cancer after
- all
- </p>
- <p> Women have been told for years that one way to reduce the
- risk of breast cancer is to eat the right diet: plenty of fiber,
- not too much fat. But a major new study published in the Journal
- of the American Medical Association says it ain't necessarily so.
- After keeping tabs on nearly 90,000 women for eight years,
- doctors at Boston's Brigham and Women's Hospital and other
- institutions found no evidence for the assertion. Earlier
- studies had pointed to the same conclusion, but diehards still
- think the link may exist. They point out that all the women in
- the study ate plenty of fat; it was just that high-fat diets
- generated no more cancer than moderate-fat regimens. Perhaps
- women who eat negligible amounts of fat do have reduced
- breast-cancer levels. It's hard to test, since such women are
- scarce in the U.S. But because high-fat, low-fiber diets cause
- other health problems, women should avoid them anyway.
- </p>
- <p> Meanwhile, a study in the Lancet appears to strengthen
- another suspected breast-cancer link. Women whose mothers had
- toxemia during pregnancy (a form of high blood pressure that can
- also lower estrogen levels) are 75% less likely to get breast
- cancer as adults. High estrogen levels, in other words, are
- still a danger signal.
- </p>
-
- </body></article>
- </text>
-
-