Beware for Foods That Can Increase Breast Cancer Risks

It goes without saying that cancer is a horrible disease. But there's some good news: We're surviving more often than not. In fact according to the American Cancer Society, the five-year survival rate for all cancers diagnosed between 1999 and 2006 was 68 percent, up from 50 percent between 1975 and 1977.

If you’re a woman who just can’t eat a sandwich on anything but white bread, if you can’t go a day without your chocolate cake, if you gulp down sugary sodas by the case, you may have more to worry about than just the numbers of your scale.

In a study of more than 62,000 post menopausal women published in this month’s American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, a group of French researchers found that foods high on the glycemic index (also known as rapidly digesting simple carbohydrates like white flour and sugar) may increase the risk of breast cancer in women who are already overweight, particularly those who carry their weight in the waistline.

Ever wonder which foods should be strongly avoided by those at high risk for cancer? We can begin identifying cancer-causing foods once we know which ingredients in our food cause cancer. Some of those ingredients are food additives and chemicals used to enhance taste, while others are used strictly for appearance or to increase product shelf life. The key to avoiding cancer-causing foods is knowing which ingredients are carcinogens -- or cancer promoters -- and then reading food labels to permanently avoid consuming those ingredients.

1. All charred food, which create heterocyclic aromatic amines, known carcinogens. Even dark toast is suspect.

2. Well-done red meat. Medium or rare is better, little or no red meat is best.

3. Sugar, both white and brown–which is simply white sugar with molasses added.

4. Heavily salted, smoked and pickled foods, which lead to higher rates of stomach cancer.