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Brian Dillon

The Happy Pear admit recent breast cancer video was 'ignorant'

The Happy Pear joined RTE's Ray D'Arcy yesterday and addressed the recent controversy surrounding the video about breast cancer that was posted to their social media.

The video was posted to the brother's Instagram account in April and was soon deleted after it sparked a slew of backlash online.

Stephen and David Flynn apologised after sharing a video that suggested ways of reducing breast cancer risks through diet. However, following the video's release, many of the claims were debunked by doctors.

The Happy Pear brothers issue an apology on Instagram (The Happy Pear/Instagram)

Read more: Dublin hair loss expert says early intervention is best to fight alopecia

"Some of the possible factors are excessive saturated fat intake, excessive dairy intake and excessive animal products intake," a voiceover in the video claimed.

Dr David Robert Grimes criticised the video at the time, telling the Irish Independent that the role diet plays in modifying risk of the disease is "way smaller than most people would think."

Addressing the controversy yesterday with Ray D'Arcy, the twins said: "There was a huge controversy around it, and we understand why now, and I guess our expertise is eat more fruit and veg and I guess we’ve seen it in countless cases within ourselves.

"We’re not doctors, we’re not medical experts, but we do work with a lot of doctors and we understand the controversy and we apologise if we upset anyone, our intention was quite the opposite. It was to try and shine a light on female’s health and we apologise if we came across in any way insincere.

"I guess we learned that we kind of stepped outside our lane and totally get it and it’s like how stupid of us, sincerest apologies and we know that vegetables is our area of expertise. We were ignorant, my intention was to inspire people to eat more veg and I realise we stepped out of line, we made a mistake."

The twins run a cafe in Greystones and have also released cookbooks and regularly share recipes for a plant-based diet.

Read more: HSE official calls for calories on restaurant menus to tackle 'obesity epidemic'

Read more: HSE reveals how many unhealthy snacks you can have a week - and Irish people are eating way too many

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