Calcium can help curtail colon cancer


By AGENCY

Dairy products such as milk, are a good source of calcium, as well as green leafy vegetables. — dpa

A pint of milk helps your bones, as an old television ad jingle goes.

It helps in other ways too, according to the University of Oxford in Britain, where scientists have found indications that an extra glass of milk a day helps make bowel cancer less likely.

Calcium in milk and other dairy items, such as cheese and yoghurt, seems to protect the gut by neutralising the potential harmful effects of acids, according to the scientists, whose research covered more than 12,000 cancer cases among over 500,000 women.

“We conclude that dairy products help protect against colorectal cancer, and that this is driven largely or wholly by calcium,” the team said, after looking into the effects of 97 foods and nutrients.

Published in the journal Nature Communications, the findings pointed to green leafy vegetables as another help against bowel cancer as they are another calcium source.

While foods containing fibre have long been thought of as preventing bowel or colon cancer, the possible link to calcium has only become the subject of extensive scientific studies in recent years.

“This is the most comprehensive single study ever conducted into the relationship between diet and bowel cancer, and it highlights the potential protective role of calcium in the development of this disease,” study lead author and Oxford senior nutritional epidemiologist Dr Karen Papier told Cancer Research UK, which funded the research, along with the UK Medical Council.

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Taking calcium supplements instead of eating more food rich in the mineral might not have the same effect, however.

“We couldn’t look at the association between taking calcium supplements and bowel cancer risk in this study,” she said.

Bowel cancer is the third most common kind, with the caseload among under-50s increasing in recent years.

A study across 50 countries published late last year (2024) by The Lancet Oncology medical journal, and carried out by a team that included researchers from the American Cancer Society, found the numbers of early-onset bowel cancer to be rising in 27 of the territories assessed. – dpa

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Calcium , minerals , nutrition , diet , colon cancer , cancer

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