Acrylamide cleared of causing breast cancer

It was responsible for one of the biggest food scares in recent times. Now acrylamide, which is found in coffee, French fries and many other foods, has been cleared of causing breast cancer.

The alarm was raised in 2002 when researchers discovered that acrylamide, which had been shown to cause cancers in animals, can form in a range of foods while they are being cooked. A team led by Lorelei Mucci at Harvard School of Public Health in Boston has now sounded the all-clear - at least for breast cancer - following a 20-year study of 100,000 nurses in the US.

Although 3000 of the women developed breast cancer, questionnaires revealed that their risk was not affected by the amount of acrylamide-rich food they had consumed. "At levels in the diet, it doesn't seem to cause breast cancer," says Mucci, who presented her results at the American Chemical Society meeting in Boston earlier this week.

newscientist.com

Soda Warning? High-fructose Corn Syrup Linked To Diabetes, New Study Suggests

New evidence suggests that sodas sweetened with high-fructose corn syrup may increase the risk of diabetes, particularly in children. (Credit: American Chemical Society)

Science Daily — Researchers have found new evidence that soft drinks sweetened with high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) may contribute to the development of diabetes, particularly in children. In a laboratory study of commonly consumed carbonated beverages, the scientists found that drinks containing the syrup had high levels of reactive compounds that have been shown by others to have the potential to trigger cell and tissue damage that could cause the disease, which is at epidemic levels.

HFCS is a sweetener found in many foods and beverages, including non-diet soda pop, baked goods, and condiments. It is has become the sweetener of choice for many food manufacturers because it is considered more economical, sweeter and more easy to blend into beverages than table sugar. Some researchers have suggested that high-fructose corn syrup may contribute to an increased risk of diabetes as well as obesity, a claim which the food industry disputes. Until now, little laboratory evidence has been available on the topic.

In the current study, Chi-Tang Ho, Ph.D., conducted chemical tests among 11 different carbonated soft drinks containing HFCS. He found 'astonishingly high' levels of reactive carbonyls in those beverages. These undesirable and highly-reactive compounds associated with "unbound" fructose and glucose molecules are believed to cause tissue damage, says Ho, a professor of food science at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J. By contrast, reactive carbonyls are not present in table sugar, whose fructose and glucose components are "bound" and chemically stable, the researcher notes.

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