Micah Stanley
Fried food has never had a good reputation. Two recent studies confirm that you should still not reach for fries, donuts, and the like too often. Anyone who eats fried food at least once a week already increases their risk of prostate cancer – presumably because carcinogenic substances are produced in the fat during frying.
Once-a-week fry: higher risk of prostate cancer
Researchers from the Public Health Sciences Division at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle wrote in the January issue of The Prostate that eating fried food at least once a week is enough to increase the risk of prostate cancer.
Previous studies had already shown that prostate cancer developed more frequently when the affected people liked to eat highly heated meals, e.g. B. Grilled meat. However, the Seattle study is the first to specifically look at fried foods and their potential to promote prostate cancer.
Fried food also increases the risk of other cancers
Study author Janet L. Stanford, director of the Hutchinson Center’s Program for Prostate Cancer Research, explained:
The link between prostate cancer and fried foods is limited to those people who eat fried foods really frequently, at least once a week, and more. Anyone who handles it this way belongs to the risk group for prostate cancer, so they have a significantly higher risk of developing prostate cancer than people who do not eat anything fried.”
There is also a connection with the preference for fried food for other types of cancer, for example, breast cancer, lung cancer, pancreatic cancer, neck and head cancer, and esophageal cancer.
For their study, Janet L. Stanford and her colleagues examined data from 1,549 men who had already been diagnosed with prostate cancer and from 1,492 healthy men of the same age. They were all from the Seattle area and ranged in age from 35 to 74 years.
Prostate cancer is all the more aggressive the more fried foods are served
Researchers found that men who ate french fries, fried chicken, fried fish, and/or donuts at least once a week had a 30 to 37 percent higher risk of prostate cancer than men who ate less fried foods. It was also found that men who liked to eat fried food not only developed prostate cancer more frequently but also a much more aggressive form.
Even taking into account other factors (age, BMI, genetics, etc.) that can also influence the risk of prostate cancer, the increased risk from eating fried food remained.
Of course, one cannot conclude from this study that fried food immediately triggers prostate cancer, but the researchers suspect that it could very well have something to do with the fat, which changes negatively during the frying process and could then promote cancer cell formation.
Because if the temperatures rise high enough, toxic substances can form in the fat – even more so if the oil is heated several times, i.e. used again and again. Acrylamide can now form, as well as heterocyclic amines, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, aldehydes, and acrolein (a particularly toxic aldehyde).
Acrylamide forms when deep-frying or high-heating carbohydrate-rich foods, such as B. in the production of French fries. On the other hand, heterocyclic amines and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons are formed when meat is exposed to high temperatures.
Fried foods are also known to contain the highest levels of AGEs (Advanced Glycation Endproducts). These are reaction products that are formed during glycation and are now associated with chronic inflammatory processes and oxidative stress – two factors that in turn can promote the development of cancer, but also other chronic diseases.
For example, a chicken breast fried for 20 minutes contains 9 times more AGEs than a chicken breast cooked for an hour, according to Stanford’s team. It is now suspected that the increased risk of prostate cancer does not only relate to fried food but generally to fast food, because those who frequently eat fried food usually do not eat it at home but in fast food restaurants.
Those who love fries die earlier
If the consumption of fried food is associated with a higher risk of cancer, the results of a study from June 2017 (The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition) are no longer particularly surprising.
Luigi Fontana of Italy’s Brescia University Medical School and colleagues, after analyzing data from 4,400 US adults, concluded that eating two to three servings of french fries a week doubled the risk of premature death.
Unfried potatoes pose no health risk
Potatoes are a staple food. Unfortunately, they are often consumed exclusively in processed form, namely as French fries or chips. In the US, for example, 64 percent of potatoes are now eaten as fries and chips. In the 1960s it was only 35 percent.
Simple potatoes in their skins are not often on the table these days. However, these are not harmful at all but fit very well as a side dish in a healthy diet – just like mashed potatoes or gently low-fat fried potatoes.
The more fried food, the higher the risk of dying prematurely
In Fontana’s study, participants in the Osteoarthritis Initiative (OAI) cohort study was examined and scientifically monitored for 8 years. They were between 45 and 79 years old. During the course of the study, 236 participants died.
It was now looked at to what extent the total consumption of potatoes and how the consumption of fried potatoes affected the risk of death. Potatoes per se (eaten without being fried) did not appear to have a negative influence on the time of death; it was only problematic if one preferred fried potatoes, i.e. fries, chips, potato pancakes, etc.
Those who ate two to three servings of fried potatoes a week were twice as likely to die prematurely as those who did not eat any fried potatoes. Those who ate more than three servings a week increased this risk even further.
