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NEW CANCER STUDY TO FOCUS ON BLACK WOMEN Beatrice Benson has two friends who were affected by a disease all too common to black women: breast cancer. They have since recovered, but the experience of watching their suffering was enough to prompt Benson to encourage her daughter to enroll in a study looking at the link between nutrition and breast cancer in premenopausal black woman. "I think it's great they're doing this outreach to the black women because we cannot seem to take care of ourselves," Benson said at a recent sign-up session at the Family Cafe restaurant. "We seem to take care of everyone else but us." The African-American Nutrition for Life Study—launched this month by the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center—is a four-year project that will compare several diets developed for 200 Houston-area black women. The study will focus on women who are between the ages of 25 and 45 and have no history of cancer, diabetes or heart disease. Researchers hope to establish a link between specific diets and the incidence of breast cancer in these women. "What we hope to get out of this is to prove scientifically that diet does play a role in regulating one's estrogen levels," said Lovell Jones, the study's principal investigator and the director of M.D. Anderson's Center for Research on Minority Health. High levels of estrogen have been associated with an increased risk of breast cancer, and a high-fiber, low-fat diet may decrease estrogen levels, he added. Breast cancer among premenopausal women is often a more aggressive form of the disease, and incidence rates are higher in black women. Overall, death rates for black women of all ages are higher, though there is more incidence of the disease in white women. Researchers suspect black women are more often the victims of breast cancer because they may be detecting tumors too late and are unable to afford proper medical care, said Angelina Esparza, program director for the minority health research center. The American Cancer Society—which has determined breast cancer to be the most common cancer in black women and the second most deadly—allotted $1.8 million for the study. The cancer society estimates there will be 20,000 new cases of breast cancer in black women in 2003, and 5,700 deaths. Benson said black women need education about how poor nutrition may affect their long-term health. "There's so much that we don't know about foods," she said. "We eat the kinds of foods we like and enjoy. And we don't know that it might help or hurt us in any way. ... I think this program that M.D. Anderson has will help that learning curve." Cassandra Harris, an M.D. Anderson health educator, joined the study Aug. 6. "I think this is something that will motivate a lot of women to eat healthier, and not only for breast cancer, but for other health issues as well," she said. ----- For more information about the African-American Nutrition for Life Study, a comparison of women's diets, call M.D. Anderson's Center for Research on Minority Health at (713) 792-4163.
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