Inside Prevention

A Diet Rich in Carcinogens?

Bathing suit season is in full swing. The ads for diet sodas, guilt-free desserts, and skinny yogurt are everywhere. But just how sweet are these tasty treats?

The debate over artificial sweeteners is heating up once again. As reported in Environmental Health Perspectives this month, an Italian research team has shown that cancers, including lymphomas, leukemias and breast cancer, were more common in rats exposed to the sweetener aspartame—sold under the name NutraSweet—than in animals that were not exposed.

The FDA and others argue that the Italian team’s methodology is flawed and does not follow National Toxicology Program guidelines. The study is the first to show that exposure to aspartame in the womb and in early life play may play a role in later life disease. Researchers allowed the animals to die natural deaths and did not to kill them at two years as NTP guidelines dictate.

But, as reported by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Dr. Devra Davis of the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute argues that this new methodology is actually the “wave of the future.” “You kill a rat at two years, that's comparable to killing a person at 60,” Dr. Davis said. But what happens after 60?

At BCF, we are very interested in this “wave of the future” and other scientific advances that will shine the light on early life exposures and their connections to later life breast cancer. As we wait for the science to catch up, maybe we can all try to make this bathing suit season a little less artificially sweet.

The Skeptics Are Moved

What does it take to move a mountain of skeptics? Move one step at a time and climb over it.

That's what Dr. Julia Brody and her team at Silent Spring Institute  have done. They climbed right over the wall of silence and published comprehensive research on breast cancer and the environment, including a database of 216 mammary carcinogens.

This is exactly what we hoped for when the Breast Cancer Fund took those first steps on the "pathway to prevention" -- aggregating the science in our State of the Evidence report starting in 2002. Since then, BCF has been pushing, pulling, encouraging and collaborating with colleague breast cancer organizations; and creating education, policy and media plans to bring attention to the environmental links to breast cancer.

Now, all those efforts are paying off -- a large funding institution like Komen supports the work of stellar research institutions like Silent Spring, a mainstream journal (Cancer) publishes it, the media covers it and the public is better served.

Might we save one generation of young girls from exposure to toxic chemicals that might spare them breast cancer later? Might we change public health policy? Another mountain –- more steps linking arms. I’m more hopeful this month than any other since I started this work.