Peanuts may reduce risk of death, heart disease

WASHINGTON, United States – Eating peanuts, in small amounts, may reduce the risk of mortality, especially death from cardiovascular disease, a new study Monday showed.

The report compiles research from people of varying races, including Caucasians, African Americans and Asians, all from low income backgrounds.

Researchers found that consuming peanuts regularly reduced mortality among men and women from all groups, and suggests that eating the nuts — which are relatively affordable — can be an inexpensive and nutritious way to reduce mortality and cardiovascular disease around the world.

The study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, Internal Medicine includes more than 70,000 Caucasians and blacks in the United States and some 130,000 Chinese people in Shanghai.

Reduced total mortality

“We found that peanut consumption was associated with reduced total mortality and cardiovascular disease mortality in a predominantly low-income black and white population in the US, and among Chinese men and women living in Shanghai,” said senior author Xiao-Ou Shu, associate director for Global Health at the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center (VICC).

There was a reduced risk of total mortality of in 17 to 21 percent of participants, the study showed.

The risk of death from cardiovascular disease was slashed by between 23 and 38 percent.

But co-author William Blot warned that because the data was from observational epidemiological studies and not randomized clinical trials, “we cannot be sure that peanuts per se were responsible for the reduced mortality observed.”

“The findings from this new study, however, reinforce earlier research suggesting health benefits from eating nuts, and thus are quite encouraging,” added Blot, who is also associate director for cancer prevention control and population-based research at VICC.

Less expensive nut

Peanuts are less expensive and more widely available than many other nuts, and are eaten by many cultures around the world.

The nutritious nuts — which are actually legumes — are high in and unsaturated fat, fiber, vitamins, and anti-oxidants and can boost cardiovascular health with as little as 30 grams eaten weekly.

“The results suggest that including a modest amount of nuts as part of a well-balanced diet may be of benefit,” said Peter Weissberg, director of the British Heart Foundation, who did not participate in the study.

“The data do not show that the more peanuts you eat the lower the risk of a fatal heart attack, so people should not start eating large quantities of nuts, particularly salted nuts, in the hope that it will protect them from heart disease,” he added.

Previous research has focused on white upper class research subjects.

The participants in this latest study were observed for between five and 12 years.

source: technology.inquirer.net

Ultrasound helps catch cancer in higher-risk women: US study

Adding an ultrasound to annual mammograms for women at higher-than-average breast cancer risk helps catch more early-stage tumors but increases the chance that healthy women will get follow-up biopsies unnecessarily, according to a US study.

For most women who fit into an "intermediate-risk" category, including those with very dense breasts, or who have a family member with breast cancer, the extra chance of false positives and more testing is probably worth it, said lead author Wendie Berg, from Magee-Womens Hospital in Pittsburgh.

That's because along with those women's higher chances of getting cancer, mammograms may not work as well on women with denser breasts, for example.

"The vast majority... of women who are well aware of these risks would still gladly choose to have the ultrasound, knowing that it increases the chance of finding cancer if it's present and finding it early," Berg said of the study, which appeared in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Recommendations from cancer and radiology organizations call for women who are at high risk of cancer, including those with BRCA1 and BRCA2 gene mutations, to get magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in addition to annual mammography.

But guidelines haven't specified whether extra tests are also the best option for those in the intermediate-risk category, which may include up to 30 percent of women.

Berg said that adding annual MRIs for these women isn't such a practical or cost-effective option, and many people feel claustrophobic during the procedure or just don't like it. So she and her colleagues wanted to see if ultrasounds, which are less bothersome and less expensive, might be an alternative addition to mammography.

Their study involved about 2,700 women seen at 21 different sites. More than half of those women had a history of breast cancer themselves—also classified as intermediate risk.

Every year for three years, women had both a mammogram and an ultrasound to check for signs of cancer. Finally, the researchers offered participants one MRI as a final check.

Over the study period, there were 111 new cases of breast cancer, 59 of which were picked up during mammography. Another 32 tumors that weren't spotted on mammograms were found with ultrasound, 30 of which were invasive cancers.

Out of 612 women who opted for an MRI, nine more cancers that hadn't shown up on other screening tests were detected. Eleven cancers were diagnosed at some point during the study through means other than screening.

Despite catching the additional cancers, there were downsides to the extra tests. One out of every 20 women had to have a breast biopsy because of ultrasound results, though only a small fraction of those ended up having cancer.

"We are always in a quandary because we don't know what to do with these intermediate-risk patients," said Regina Hooley, who studies breast cancer screening at the Yale School of Medicine but wasn't involved with the study.

"MRI is costly and it's invasive. I think (ultrasound) is actually a very, very good alternative for these patients and I would probably recommend that they just get ultrasound."

But Susan Roth, a radiologist from the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, said the rate of false positives with ultrasound was concerning.

"The more tests you add, we'll find more cancers, and they're real. The question is, what are we willing to pay for that, in terms of the downsides and the dollars?" she said.

For women at normal risk of breast cancer, the government-backed US Preventive Services Task Force says evidence supports mammograms only, done every other year between age 50 and 74. –Reuters

source: gmanetwork.com