Hold the fries! Study links tots' diets to cancer

A study of more than 2,000 female nurses has found that eating French fries as a preschooler increases the risk of breast cancer.

Researchers at Brigham and Women's Hospital reviewed the preschool diets of 582 nurses with breast cancer and 1,569 without the disease. The participants' mothers answered questions about how often their daughters ate any of 30 food items.

Researchers say that it's the saturated fat and trans fat the fries are cooked in, not the potatoes themselves, that increase the risk. The findings appear in the International Journal of Cancer.

Prevention works better than heart-disease cure

Investing in risk reduction has a big return.

A study shows that getting people to quit smoking and eat healthier is four times more effective at reducing heart deaths than is focusing on people who already have heart disease.

British researchers found that heart disease deaths in England and Wales fell by 54 percent from 1981 to 2000, mainly because of reductions in smoking, cholesterol and blood pressure in the general population.

The study appears in the online British Medical Journal.

Breast cancer patients often opt for surgery

When breast cancer patients have a choice, they often choose major surgery, even when less radical procedures would work just as well.

A study at the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center found that women are more likely to choose a mastectomy, which involves removal of the entire breast, rather than simply having the tumor excised, even though survival rates are the same.

Although mastectomy reduces the risk of the cancer recurring, most recurrences are detected and treated, making the overall survival rates the same.

Study results appear in the Aug. 20 issue of the Journal of Clinical Oncology.

The toe-heel express gives kids a lift all day

Kids who start their morning by walking to school are more active the rest of the day.

A study of 92 kids age 13 and 14 in Edinburgh, Scotland, found that the kids who walked to and from school had the most minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity throughout the day.

All students who walked both ways averaged an hour or more of vigorous physical activity on weekdays, compared with 90 percent of those who walked just one way and 87 percent of those who rode both ways.

The research appears in the online British Medical Journal.