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Fresh fears have been raised over the safety of cooked foods as a wide-ranging study found for the first time that a common chemical caused by frying, roasting or grilling can double the risk of cancer in women.

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Five years ago, scientists sparked a worldwide alert when they disclosed that many household foods contain the substance acrylamide, which was thought to be a probable cause of the disease.
Now a study involving 120,000 people - half of whom were women - has established a direct link between consumption of the chemical and the incidence of ovarian and womb cancer.
Research has shown that acrylamide is found in cooked foods such as bread, breakfast cereals, coffee and also meat and potatoes which had been fried, baked, roasted, grilled or barbecued.
The Dutch study found that women who absorbed more acrylamide were twice as likely to develop ovarian or womb cancer as those who ingested a smaller amount.
The higher amount eaten by the women involved was the equivalent to a single packet of crisps, half a pack of biscuits, or a portion of chips a day.The EU has now advised people to avoid burnt toast or golden brown chips because they contain higher levels of the substance acrylamide.They have also recommended eating home-cooked meals which contain much lower amounts of the chemical than processed products, fast food and restaurant meals.The Food Standards Agency welcomed the report and called on consumers to heed the EU's advice. However, a spokesman said it was not possible to avoid the chemical entirely."This new study supports our current advice and policy, which already assumes that acrylamide has the potential to be a human carcinogen," a spokesman said."Since acrylamide forms naturally in a wide variety of cooked foods, it is not possible to have a healthy balanced diet that avoids it."

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The findings from the University of Maastricht, published in the journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention, came only a month after the public was warned about the increased risk of cancer from eating bacon and ham.It also came as the Government launches a five-year strategy to combat the disease.The Dutch report relied on the Netherlands Cohort Study, which involved 120,000 people aged between 55 and 70, about 62,000 of them women.At the start of the study, participants completed a questionnaire that was used to estimate their acrylamide intake.The participants were followed up through the Dutch cancer registries and after 11 years, 327 had developed endometrial (womb) cancer, 300 were diagnosed with ovarian cancer and 1,835 suffered breast cancer.

The study found that women who had eaten 40 micrograms (μg) of acrylamide a day (found, for example in a 32g pack of crisps) had double the risk of endometrial cancer and ovarian cancer than women in the lowest category.There was no link found to breast cancer.Janneke Hogervorst, at the Department of Epidemiology at Maastricht University, said that "this is the first observation of an association between dietary acrylamide intake and cancer in humans".But she warned: "It is important that these results are corroborated and confirmed by other studies before far-reaching conclusions can be drawn."

About 6,400 women are diagnosed with womb cancer in Britain each year and 7,000 with ovarian cancer, one of the highest rates in Europe.The FSA said people should try to have less fried and overcooked food in their diet."People should eat a balanced healthy diet which includes plenty of fruit and vegetables, bread, other cereals and potatoes," a spokesman said."They should also limit the amount of sugary and fatty foods they eat, including fried food such as chips and crisps."The EU called on people not to overcook their food."General advice, resulting from this project, is to avoid overcooking when baking, frying or toasting carbohydrate-rich foods," it recommended.

"French fries and roast potatoes should be cooked to a golden yellow rather than golden brown colour and bread should be toasted to the lightest colour acceptable."Dr Lesley Walker, of Cancer Research UK, tried to calm fears over the link, suggesting that other factors could have a greater impact on the chances of cancer."Women shouldn't be unduly worried by this news," she said. "It's not easy to separate out one component of the diet from all the others when studying the complex diets of ordinary people."And as acrylamide levels are highest in carbohydrate containing foods - such as chips and crisps - other factors need to be firmly ruled out, especially being overweight or obese, which we know is strongly linked to womb cancer and probably linked to ovarian cancer."A Food and Drink Federation spokesman said: "The food manufacturing industry has made huge efforts to reduce the formation of acrylamide in manufactured foods using a variety of techniques.

"Considerable progress has already been made in reducing levels - for example potato crisps 30-40 per cent, potato fries 15 per cent, crispbread 75 per cent - but more work is needed on coffee."When the alarm was raised in 2002, the FSA tested a number of products, including Walkers Crisps, Ryvita crackers, Kellogg's Rice Crispies and Pringles crisps.They found higher levels of the chemical occurring naturally in the food than international safety limits permitted in the packaging of the product.Although people fry less food at home, the popularity of fast food means increasing levels are being consumed.In 2000, charred meat and blackened toast were condemned because other chemicals formed on the burnt food were found to contribute to the risk of cancer.