Dr Kerryn Phelps, Health Editor, with Steve Leibmann, Channel Nine, 'Today'

The study found acrylamide in a range of hybocarbonate foods including packets of chips and crisp breads and fresh cooked potatoes, and with that and other medical news, we're joined now by our health editor, Dr Kerryn Phelps.

Let's talk about this Swedish study first of all. How seriously should we take it?

PHELPS: Well the World Health Organisation is taking it seriously so I think we should. Stockholm University produced these results about a month ago and said that they found levels of this acrylamide…

LEIBMANN: Now what, sorry, what is acrylamide?

PHELPS: Well it's a known cancer-causing substance in rats. There is, as yet, no evidence that it causes cancer in humans but it's certainly raised the warning bells. And the World Health Organisation has convened a special meeting in Geneva next month to discuss the findings.

The British Food Standards agency has replicated the findings that they made in Stockholm and they are saying, okay, we need to take this seriously. We need to see whether this substance is causing cancer in humans. If so, what do we do about it? How do we go about reducing the production of this particular chemical in high carbohydrate foods, particularly the high number of junk foods.

It seems to be carbohydrates cooked at high temperatures either by frying or baking.

LEIBMANN: Okay, so as is often the case, more questions than answers.

PHELPS: Well at this stage, it would seem so. But I guess with every question that's raised, we get a direction for the future to find an answer and, if we can find a way of reducing any cancer-causing chemicals in our environment, in our food, then clearly that's the way we ought to be going.

LEIBMANN: Now this new lung cancer treatment. This once-a-day pill. It's not a cure?

PHELPS: It's not a cure at this stage but, once again, I think a very promising direction for the future. It's what we call a targeted therapy. It was presented, the results of this were presented at the recent American Society of Clinical Oncology in the United States, and they found that, with this new drug called Iressa it managed to - they were giving it only to people with terminally ill lung cancer and those people generally weeks away from dying. Now these people felt better. They ate better. They generally had a greater sense of well-being and they lived longer in many cases. In 10% of people the tumours actually shrunk which was a remarkable finding in such an advanced lung cancer.

LEIBMANN: Lived longer for how much longer?

PHELPS: Well an average of about six months. One woman who was involved in an earlier study survived for three years and is apparently still going. So definitely a sign for the future.

Now what this does and it's really the direction that cancer treatments are heading is that it targets the growth factors that help cancers to grow. And it actually switches off that part of the cancer, the genetics of the cancer that make the cancer grow. Now there might be several of these factors.

So the reason we say it's not a cure is that it's not going to turn off all of the factors that make cancers grow, but there may well be ultimately a combination for each type of cancer. Now interestingly this was done in lung cancer. It appears that there are similar growth factors in other cancers like colon and prostate cancers and so they will be able to do some experimental work on other cancers as well.

LEIBMANN: So there's a glimmer of hope.

PHELPS: Well there is a glimmer of hope. And the thing about medical research, particularly involving cancer, is that you very rarely see massive break throughs. You see pieces of the jigsaw puzzle coming together.

LEIBMANN: Step by step. Yeah, okay, good to see you.

PHELPS: Thanks, Steve.

LEIBMANN: Thanks, Kerryn.

Ends