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BETHESDA, MARYLAND. Although pancreatic cancer accounts for only 2 per cent of
all cancers worldwide it is the fifth leading cause of cancer deaths in the US.
The five-year survival rate is less than 5 per cent. Researchers at the
National Cancer Institute and the Finnish National Public Health Institute now
report that an adequate folic acid intake can materially reduce the risk of
developing the cancer. Their study included over 27,000 healthy male smokers
aged 50 to 69 years when enrolled in 1985. Thirteen years later 157 of the men
had developed cancer of the pancreas. A review of dietary records revealed that
the men with a daily dietary folate intake of more than 373 micrograms/day had
half the risk of pancreatic cancer than did the men with an intake of less than
280 micrograms/day. This significant risk reduction held true even after
adjusting for other potential risk factors. As expected, the most serious risk
factor was smoking. Men who smoked more than 25 cigarettes a day had an 82 per
cent higher risk than men who smoked less than 14 a day. The researchers found
no correlation between the risk of pancreatic cancer and alcohol consumption or
dietary intake of methionine, vitamin B6 or vitamin B12.
Supplementing with folic acid seemed to have a slightly negative effect. The
researchers point out that the supplement takers had significantly more health
and alcohol-related problems than did the non-takers and that the number of
supplement takers was too small to draw statistically significant conclusions.
They caution that the issue could be clouded by earlier findings from animal
experiments that, while folic acid supplementation may be effective in
preventing cancer from starting, it may actually enhance tumor development at a
later stage.
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