Prevent Lung Cancer With Yogurt?

Health

When I was younger, smoking and other uses of tobacco products was very popular. Early television, magazines and newspapers were filled with advertisements for various brands of cigarettes. Among the most popular commercials were the Marlboro Man, Camel and Winston. Over time, newer brands of cigarettes with filters, mint or menthol or lower tar became the norm.

Then hundreds of thousands of Americans developed lung, throat and other forms of cancer and the federal government was forced to take notice and take action. They required that tobacco companies place warning labels on their products and eventually, television ads for cigarettes were banned.

Over the last 20 years, the number of newly diagnosed cases of lung cancer have been falling as has the death rate. However, lung cancer still ranks among the more common forms of cancer, with about 228,150 new cases diagnosed this year in the United States and about 142,670 deaths due to lung cancer. According to the American Cancer Society:

Lung cancer is by far the leading cause of cancer death among both men and women. Each year, more people die of lung cancer than of colon, breast, and prostate cancers combined…

How great is one’s chance of developing lung cancer? According to the American Cancer Society:

Overall, the chance that a man will develop lung cancer in his lifetime is about 1 in 15; for a woman, the risk is about 1 in 17. These numbers include both smokers and non-smokers. For smokers the risk is much higher, while for non-smokers the risk is lower.

 

  • Black men are about 15% more likely to develop lung cancer than white men. The rate is about 14% lower in black women than in white women.
  • Both black and white women have lower rates than men, but the gap is closing. The lung cancer rate has been dropping among men over the past few decades, but only for about the last decade in women.
  • Despite their overall risk of lung cancer being higher, black men are less likely to develop SCLC than are white men.

 

There is no doubt that smoking is the leading cause of lung cancer, but many develop the disease due to second-hand smoke or air pollution of some form. However, there are many people who develop lung cancer who have never smoked or been around smokers that much. Saying that, is there anything, other than avoiding smoking, second-hand smoke or air pollution, that someone can do to lower their risk of developing lung cancer?

According to this report, the answer is YES!

Researchers examined pooled data from 10 previous studies that included a total of almost 1.45 million adults in Asia, Europe, and the United States. After following people for an average of 8.6 years, 18,822 cases of lung cancer were documented.

Compared to people who never ate yogurt, those who consumed the most yogurt were 19% less likely to develop lung cancer, the analysis found.

People who had the most fiber in their diets, meanwhile, were 17% less likely to develop lung cancer than those who ate the least fiber.

And individuals with the highest fiber intake and highest yogurt consumption were 33% less likely than those with the lowest consumption of both to develop lung cancer, the study team reports in JAMA Oncology.

If you have a family history of lung cancer or live an area with smokers or one that has a high lung cancer rate, you may want to add more fiber and yogurt to your diet. After all, a 33% reduction is a major reduction.

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