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Topics: Health, Cancer, News, Food and Drink
Niamh Shackleton
Topics: Health, Cancer, News, Food and Drink
They say an apple a day keeps the doctor away, but it may be something else you need introduce to your diet to stay healthy.
There are many things people will be aware of that can increase your risk of developing cancer.
From sun beds and skin cancer, to smoking and lung cancer; many common cancers are associated with people's lifestyle choices.
With this in mind, a 2019 study revealed that 50 percent of all cancer deaths could be prevented by people making lifestyle changes.
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And one lifestyle change you could make to reduce the risk of you developing bowel in particular is by simply drinking a certain beverage on a daily basis — milk.
Now, milk has long been associated with the positive benefits it can have on our teeth and bones, but new research by Cancer Research UK has found consuming an additional 300mg of calcium (about the amount in a large glass of milk) a day could be linked to decreasing the risk of bowel cancer by 17 percent.
The study marks the largest single study of diet and bowel cancer to date in Nature Communications, and used data from more than 500,000 women.
The data was analyzed by researchers from the University of Oxford to see if there were any links between 97 dietary products and nutrients and bowel cancer risk over an average time of 16 years.
Dr Keren Papier, lead researcher of the study, said of the findings: "This is the most comprehensive single study ever conducted into the relationship between diet and bowel cancer, and it highlights the potential protective role of calcium in the development of this disease."
Dairy foods rich in calcium — such as yoghurt and milk – were linked to lower risk of developing cancer.
Non-dairy foods that are rich in calcium, like green leafy vegetables, were also found to be beneficial in reducing people's risk of developing the common cancer.
Papier further added: "We have some idea on why calcium has this effect.
"It’s suggested that calcium might protect against bowel cancer by binding to bile acids and free fatty acids to form a type of a harmless ‘soap’, which stops them from damaging the lining of our gut."
The so-called 'soap' aids bile and fatty acids to be swept out of the gut like a ‘spring clean’, Cancer Research UK explained. This way they're less likely to build up and cause and damage that might lead to cancer.
Before you get too excited, however, other studies have linked high dairy consumption to breast and prostate cancer, and an increased risk of heart disease.