Eating biscuits three times a week 'could give you womb cancer'

Regularly snacking on biscuits, cakes or buns can significantly increase a woman's chances of developing womb cancer, a new study shows. 

Women who treated themselves two to three times a week were 33 per cent more likely to suffer the disease.
 

Among those eating them more than three times a week, the risk of falling ill with a tumour jumped by 42 per cent. 

The findings come from a ten-year study in Sweden which looked at the eating habits of more than 60,000 women. Scientists wanted to investigate links between sugary diets and the development of tumours in the womb. 

Also known as endometrial cancer, it affects around 6,400 women a year in the UK and kills an estimated 1,000 annually.

Although the risks are known to increase with weight gain, researchers at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm wanted to see if there was a direct link between the amount of sweet foods eaten and the onset of cancer. 

They studied data from thousands of women who, in 1987, completed questionnaires on diet, lifestyle, weight and general health. Ten years later, those still alive were given the same questions again. 

All the women were asked how often they added sugar to their hot drinks or food and what was well their intake of different types of sugary foods. 

When the researchers took these earlier findings and matched them up to data showing how many of the women went on to develop endometrial cancer, they found a total of 729 cases in the 18 years from the start of the study. 

They found little or no increase in risk from eating certain high-sugar items such as sweets, soft drinks, jam or marmalade. But women who frequently snacked on sweet cakes, buns or biscuits were up to 42 per cent more likely to get cancer.

The study looked at how often volunteers ate such treats but not specifically how much. However, those exceeding a total sugar intake of more than 35 grammes of sugar a day - equivalent to about seven teaspoons - faced a 36 per cent increase in tumour risk. 

Scientists think sugary diets affect cancer risk in several ways. One is that sugar overload makes the body release more insulin, which in turn can stimulate the excessive growth of cells in the endometrial, the lining of the womb.

Another is that it boosts levels of the hormone oestrogen, which has already been shown to trigger the uncontrolled growth of cells - a key characteristic of cancer. 

In a report on their findings, published in the journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention, the researchers said: 'These data may prove to be of major public health significance if they are confirmed by other studies in other populations.' 

Yinka Ebo, senior health information manager at Cancer Research UK, said keeping a healthy weight and staying physically active were the best ways to reduce womb cancer risk. 

She said: 'This study shows eating lots of sugar and certain sugary foods may increase the risk of womb cancer, but we would need to see these results repeated in other large studies like this before we can draw any firm conclusions.' 

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