“At levels consumed in the diet, it appears unlikely that acrylamide in foods is related to breast cancer risk,” says study leader Lorelei Mucci, ScD, an epidemiologist at Channing Labs at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard School of Public Health in Boston. In prior work, her group also examined dietary acrylamide and risk of cancer of the colon, rectum, bladder and kidney, and similarly found no association. “Although we do not rule out that very high levels of acrylamide could cause cancer, it appears that at the levels found in the diet, it is unlikely.”
Acrylamide has been detected in many widely-consumed foods, ranging from French fries to coffee. The highest levels are in fried and baked products such as potato chips and other snack foods. Although classified as a probable human carcinogen on the basis of animal studies, there is currently no consensus on dietary acrylamide’s risks to human health. With food safety authorities in Europe taking steps to curb acrylamide, controversy has arisen over whether similar action should be taken in the United States.