A Japanese study released Wednesday said post-menopausal women who consumed seaweed had an increased risk of developing thyroid cancer, linking it to iodine in the macrobiotic food.
The national survey included nearly 53,000 Japanese women over 14 years. They looked at women aged 40 to 69 and found the group reported 134 thyroid cancer cases and 113 of those cases were papillary carcinoma.
Papillary carcinoma is a relatively common well-differentiated thyroid cancer. According to Medscape.com, these tumors may spread easily to other organs. The life expectancy of patients with this cancer is related to their age. The prognosis is better for younger patients than for patients who are older than 45 years.
According to the study, women who ate seaweed daily were 1.7 times more likely to develop cancer than those who ate it no more than twice a week.
The risk doubled among post-menopausal women, they were 3.8 times more likely to develop cancer than those who limited their intake. (more…)
