Consumption of sugary drinks such as soda and fruit juice is linked to a higher risk of developing certain kinds of cancer, researchers reported on Thursday.

The consumption of sugary drinks has exploded worldwide in recent decades and the high-calorie beverages have already been associated with a elevated risk of obesity — itself recognized as a leading cancer risk factor.

A team of researchers in France wanted to assess the associations between heightened consumption of sugar drinks and the risks of overall cancer, as well as several cancer types, including breast, prostate and bowel cancers.

They surveyed more than 100,000 adults, with an average of age of 42, 79 percent of whom were women.

The participants, who were followed for a maximum of nine years, completed at least two 24-hour online validated dietary questionnaires, calculating their daily consumption of sugar and artificially sweetened beverages as well as 100 percent fruit juices.

Researchers measured the daily intakes of sugary drinks against those of diet beverages and compared them to cancer cases in participants’ medical records during the follow-up period.

They found that just a 100 ml increase per day of sugary drinks was associated with an 18 percent increased risk of cancer, and with a 22 percent increase in breast cancer.

Both sugar-sweetened drinks and fruit juices saw a similar higher risk association.

During a follow-up, researchers found 2,193 cases of cancer were diagnosed, the average age at diagnosis being 59 years.

Authors of the study, which appeared in the BMJ medical journal, stressed their work was based on observation and so could not establish the cause of cancer prognoses.

But the sample size was large and they adjusted for a number of other influential factors.

Its authors suggested that, based on their findings, taxing sugary products could have a significant impact on cancer rates.

“This large, well-designed study adds to the existing evidence that consumption of sugary drinks may be associated with increased risk of some cancers,” Graham Wheeler, senior statistician of the Cancer Research UK said of the study. AFP

MAHOTTARI, Aug 18: The Binayatara Foundation has begun providing medical service for cancer patients in Ramgopalpur of Mahottari.

Cancer screening began here with the joining initiative of the Foundation based in the US, the Binayatara cancer trust Nepal and Ramgopalpur municipality. The Foundation aims to construct a highly-equipped cancer treatment center in few years.

The center is expected to put to an end for people in the east to go to Bharatpur or Kathmandu for treatment of cancer, chairperson of the Trust Dr Rakesh Shah said. It will be developed into a community hospital.

Out-patient department or OPD service has begun from the rented building and the trust will be constructing its own building soon. The municipality has donated 52 ropani of land for the purpose.

The foundation has targeted to complete the building and install necessary equipment within the next four years. It is expected to cost more than seven hundred million rupees for the project to come to completion.

LONDON, June 3: Scientists have made the biggest breakthrough in treating ovarian cancer or a decade after researchers found a way to shrink tumours.

Cancer patients who had run out of other options responded well to the new drug in a medical advance which experts have hailed as “exciting” and “promising”.

The drug – called ONX-0801 – was tested on 15 woman with advanced ovarian cancer in the first phase of a clinical trial run at the Institute of Cancer Research and Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust in London.

Its results were so good that researchers were keen to move the drug onto the next stage of testing as soon as possible.

Seven of the 15 cancer patients saw their tumours shrink. In patients whose tumours had the particular molecular target for the drug, the results were even more impressive, with seven out of 10 women responding.

ONX-0801 attacks ovarian cancer by mimicking folic acid to enter the cancer cells.

Dr Udai Banerji, deputy director of the drug development unit at the ICR and the Royal Marsden, who led the study, said much more research was needed but the results were exciting.

He said: “As this is a completely new mechanism of action it should add upward of six months to patients’ lives with minimal side-effects in extremely late phase ovarian cancer.

“This is much more than anything that has been achieved in the last 10 years.”

He said if clinical trials proved the drug’s effectiveness, it could potentially be used in early-stage disease where “the impact on survival may be better”.

Because the new therapy is so specifically targeted at cancer cells, it leaves healthy cells alone. This means it does not have the side-effects often seen with chemotherapy such as infections, diarrhoea, nerve damage and hair loss.

Experts have also created tests to detect the cells that will respond particularly well to the treatment, meaning doctors can identify those women who will benefit the most.

There were 7,378 new cases of ovarian cancer in the UK in 2014 and more than 4,000 women died from the disease.

Overall, only about half of all women diagnosed with ovarian cancer live for five years or more.-AGENCIES