Sushi, fish may protect against type of lung cancer

May 8, 2001 in Cancer Prevention, Nutrition Topics in the News

Sushi, fish may protect against type of lung cancer

According to a report in last week's British Journal of Cancer fish might protect from lung cancer.

Scientists from the Cancer Center Research Institute and Cancer Center Hospital of Aichi, Japan, looked at the diets of over 1,000 Japanese men and women with different types of lung cancer and compared them with over 4,000 healthy individuals.

The study found that people who ate the most fresh fish were only half as likely to develop a rare form of lung cancer called adenocarcinoma compared with people who ate the least fresh fish. Dried and salted fish consumption was not associated with any protective effect against lung cancer.

Fresh fish rich in fish oil containing polyunsaturated fatty acids may be the reason for the protective effect, the researchers noted. The researchers commented in a news report, "Japanese people love their fresh fish, particularly sushi. We think that is why, even though the Japanese smoke as much as people in the UK, their rate of lung cancer is only two-thirds as high."

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