Air Date: Week of March 9, 2001

Transcript

TOOMEY: Doctors say your chance of getting stomach cancer is affected by what you eat. For instance, eating smoked and pickled foods may increase your risk of getting that disease. And it's been suspected that green tea might protect against stomach cancer, but few studies have actually followed green tea drinkers over a long period of time. Until now. Japanese scientists studied more than 26,000 people for eight years, and they found that even people who drink a lot of green tea, five or more cups a day, did not have lower rates of stomach cancer. In reaching their conclusion, researchers took into account people's diet and lifestyle. But the analysis was complicated by a number of confounding factors. For instance, people who drink the most green tea were also more likely to smoke, and smoking is a known risk factor for stomach cancer. And that's this week's health update. I'm Diane Toomey.

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CURWOOD: It's Living on Earth. I'm Steve Curwood. And coming up: Saving sea turtles from becoming turtle soup. But first...