An alarming study finds that consumption of citrus has a high correlation with skin cancer -- and the reason why may surprise you.
Scientists have released a shocking new study that suggests that people who drink lots of orange juice, hailed for its healthy qualities like high levels of Vitamin C, have a highly raised risk for getting the deadliest form of skin cancer: melanoma.
Reseearchers say it doesn’t mean you should shun orange juice and other citrus products entirely, as there may have been other reasons for the correlation and at the very list more intensive study is needed, but it does suggest that there may be some mechanism in citrus fruits like grapefruit and oranges that causes the raised risk, according to an NBC News report.
Dr. Walter Willet, who works at the Harvard School of Public Health and also worked on the study, said it is not being recommended to avoid citrus foods based on this one study. Instead, this is of more interest to scientists to help them understand what kind of compounds from an academic standpoint are more likely to result in the creation of cancer.
They’ve identified one candidate compound: furocoumarins, which are known to cause the skin to be more sensitive to sunlight. Another compound, psoralen, also interacts with ultraviolet light in a way that can cause melanoma cells to multiply. In fact, psoralen has been used in suntan lotions as a tanning activator up until 1996, according to the report.
About 100,000 Americans participated in this study at about a 40-60 male-female breakdown. These studies have been going on for about 25 years and have included periodically asking questions about diets and habits in order to understand how the body processes certain substances over time.
Melanoma risk was less than 2 percent for people in the study over a 25-year period overall, but the scientists found that those who ate or drank at least 1.6 six-ounce servings of citrus — whether in fruit or juice form — were 36 percent more likely to get the disease.
In a strange twist, those who ate grapefruit and drank orange juice the most were at the highest risk, but not those who ate oranges and drank grapefruit juice. However, that could be explained by the fact that grapefuit has more psoralens and furocoumarins in it than grapefruit juice.
Although the results are more for the benefit of academics, it should provide a lesson to average consumers: eating a varied diet is the best way to a healthy life.
