March 31, 2019 (Medical News Today)
A recent study has suggested that reheated cooking oil may trigger changes in cells which would promote the growth of late-stage breast cancer.
Testing was performed in laboratory mice and showed “thermally abused frying oil increased metastatic breast cancer growth.” First, scientists fed the mice a low-fat diet. After that, half of the mice ingested unheated fresh soybean oil and the other half ingested thermally abused oil.
After 20 days, a significant difference could be seen in metastatic growth; metastatic growth rate of tibia tumors was four times greater in mice who consumed the thermally abused oil versus in mice who consumed the fresh soybean oil. Furthermore, mice who had ingested the thermally abused oil had twice the number of lung tumors; these tumors were also more invasive and more aggressive in the thermally abused group than in the fresh soybean group.
The findings of this study are significant considering many restaurants reheat oils multiple times before replacing their kitchens with fresh oil. According to the research, reheating oil changes its composition and causes the release of acrolein, not only a toxic, but potentially, a carcinogenic chemical as well.
While these are introductory findings, this research adds to a knowledge base of potential factors that allow metastatic breast cancer to spread.