Consuming walnuts could help reduce the chance of women developing breast cancer, according to researchers.
Food and Drug Administration health officials have stated that including 1.5 ounces of walnuts in a daily diet low in saturated fat and cholesterol reduces the risk of developing heart disease.
A group of researchers at Marshall University School of Medicine in Huntington, West Virginia, determined that lab mice that had been bred to develop breast cancer had a significantly lower risk of developing the disease if fed the human equivalent of a handful of walnuts a day.
Elaine Hardman, an associate professor of medicine at Marshall University School of Medicine and lead author of the study, “These laboratory mice typically have 100 percent tumor incidence at five months; walnut consumption delayed those tumors by at least three weeks.”
Still, Josephine Querido of Cancer Research UK said there was still not enough evidence to constitute a link between walnuts and a decreased risk of breast cancer.
‘We know that a healthy balanced diet – rich in fruit and vegetables – plays an important part in reducing the risk of many types of cancer,’ she told the BBC.
In a press statement that was released last year, the American Institute for Cancer Research and the California Walnut Commission sponsored the research by Hardman and colleagues, but Marshall University said neither organization was involved in the interpretation or reporting of the findings.
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