From my breast cancer list:

http://www.msnbc.com/news/802920.asp?0dm=C1AKH&cp1=1

Sept. 3 — A diet high in white bread, white rice and potatoes puts women at
much higher risk of pancreatic cancer — especially if they are overweight
and
do not exercise much, researchers reported on Tuesday.

Hospital          THE FINDING, published in this week’s Journal of the
National Cancer Institute, adds to research that links a “junk food” diet
with a higher risk of certain cancers.
       Previously, the only known risk factor for pancreatic cancer, which
kills 30,000 people a year in the United States, was smoking.
       “The take-home message for women who are overweight and sedentary is
that a diet high in starchy foods may increase their risk of pancreatic
cancer,” Dr. Charles Fuchs of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Brigham and
Women’s Hospital and the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, who led
the study, said in a statement.

SIMPLE STEPS TO REDUCE RISKS
       “Substituting less starchy vegetables such as broccoli for potatoes
and rice and snacking on fruit are some simple steps they can take to reduce
this potentially serious health risk.”
       Fuchs and colleagues used data from the Nurse’s Health Study, an
ongoing study of 89,000 nurses who carefully record their diet and other
habits and whose health is then watched.

        They found that eating lots of unrefined starches, such as white
bread and potatoes, increased the risk of pancreatic cancer by 57 percent —
but the numbers were just on the border of being statistically significant,
meaning the link is not a strong one.
       However, Fuchs said some of the nurses were at a much higher risk.
“If
you took women who were both overweight and sedentary, their risk was 2.5
times higher,” he said in a telephone interview.

SEDENTARY LIFESTYLE
       There is a good reason to suspect diet may be involved in pancreatic
cancer, Fuchs said. “Our presumption is that all these things — being obese,
a sedentary lifestyle, a diet high in sugars — all increase insulin levels,”
he said.


“In the laboratory, insulin promotes the growth of pancreatic cancer
cells. We suspect that body states that maintain high levels of insulin
increase pancreatic cancer’s ability to survive and grow.”
       Insulin is used by the body to process fat and sugar, and helps the
body process much of the food a person eats into glucose.
       Researchers now believe that up to a third of all cancers may be
caused by diet and lifestyle. The obvious link is between smoking and lung
cancer, but diets high in some fats and perhaps red meat have been
associated
with colon and breast cancer, for instance.
       The American Institute for Cancer Research promotes eating a diet
high
in vegetables, fruit and whole grains to prevent cancer, as well as getting
plenty of exercise.


        Pancreatic cancer is an especially deadly cancer, killing all but
about 5 percent of victims within five years.
       It is difficult to study because 80 percent of patients have an
advanced stage of the cancer when they are diagnosed. “The principle symptom
of pancreatic cancer is profound weight loss — which lowers levels of the
key
hormones involved,” Fuchs said. By then, other genes and chromosomes in the
cells have become mutated and the cancer is out of control.
       This finding may help people avoid developing the cancer and may
eventually lead to better treatments, Fuchs said. And Americans should try
to
eat fewer processed grains and white potatoes anyway, he added.
       “There are good reasons to avoid diets that are rich in these foods
because they are not only associated in this cohort with pancreatic cancer —
they are also associated with and increased risk of cardiovascular disease,
heart disease and diabetes,” he said.