Shocking! Eating chicken daily raises breast cancer risk: Study

Broilers injected with steroids leads to hormonal imbalance in the body, reveals Goa Medical College's research

PANJIM: This is for those who love to have their daily quota of chicken or ham. It will perhaps be just a matter of time before you end up in a hospital, diagnosed with breast cancer.

Harsh, but shockingly true!

Latest research by the department of Pathology, Goa Medical College, reveals that broiler chickens, which are injected with steroids, if eaten regularly and for a long time, leads to an hormonal imbalance in the body, which increases the risk of breast cancer.

Worse still, eating chicken daily, added up with other factors - reproductive life (early menarche and late menopause), nulliparity, late child birth, genetic conditions, obesity, lack of physical activity, age, pesticides and tobacco - the risks increase manifold.

Dr R G Wiseman Pinto, Head, Pathology department, who is conducting the study said, "The body produces estrogen and progesterone, which is good, but by regularly eating broiler chicken, the exo (produced outside the human body) - estrogen and progesterone - acts on the body. If there is excess of the hormones in the body for a time, added with other factors, it increases the risk of breast cancer".


Five years of research reveals that while regular eating of broiler chicken is actually harmful because they are injected with steroids to ensure faster growth, packed ham and salami have certain chemicals (preservatives) that are actually carcinogenic in nature.

In the last few years, many young girls in the age group of 21 to 30 have been detected with breast cancer. Incidentally, a study of 571 cases reveal that the number of patients with breast cancer in the age group of 21 to 30 is 4.7 percent, in 31 to 40 years in 22.9 percent, in the age group of 41 to 50 is 29.4 percent, 51 to 60 years is 22.9 percent and above the age of 61 is 19.3 percent. The percentage of breast cancer below the age of 20 in Goa is 0.34 percent.


Dr Pinto attributes this to early menarche amongst today's girls.

"Earlier, the girl child used to have menarche (menstrual period) by the age of 13 or 14, but today a girl of 8 has menarche. This is mainly due to excessive consumption of broiler chicken, ham and salami from a young age. The youngest patient we have had with breast cancer was 18 years old," said Dr Pinto.


Though the research is yet to be completed, the departments along with NGOs are conducting camps advocating that people go vegetarian.


"We are emphasizing that instead of eating boiler chicken daily, they should eat it once a week or shift to eating fish," added Dr Pinto.



The study being conducted in GMC reveals:

BOX 1 :

TYPES OF CANCER AMONG WOMEN

Breast: 31.9 %
Cervix: 15.1 %
Ovary: 4.6 %
Thyroid: 3.7 %
Stomach: 3.5 %
Rectum: 3.5 %
Lymphoma: 2.5 %
Mouth: 2.3 %
Colon: 2 %

Cases of breast cancer
From 1974-1983: 196
From 2001+2002: 590
2003: 205
2004: 230
2005: 243
2006: Not available
2007: Not available (but tentative figure is more than 300 cases)


Article published in Gomantak Times, Panaji, Goa dated 06 September,2007