Fruits And Fat Restrictions Reduce Risk Of Dying From Breast Cancer

Fruits and Fat Restrictions Reduce Risk of Dying from Breast Cancer

A low-fat diet like the one recommended for maintaining heart health is also associated with a lower risk of dying from breast cancer, according to a new large-scale study.

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A low-fat diet like the one recommended for maintaining heart health is also associated with a lower risk of dying from breast cancer, according to a new large-scale study. The results will be presented on June 2, 2019 at the American Society of Clinical Oncology Annual Meeting in Chicago.

The study included 48,835 women aged 50 to 79 years without breast cancer. It was part of the Women's Health Initiative, a global study examining the effects of hormone therapy, diet and certain nutritional supplements on the health of more than 160,000 postmenopausal women.

The participants were randomly assigned to two groups. Initially, a third of the calories from their diets came from fat. The goal of the first group was to reduce fat intake by up to 20% (of total daily calories) and increase intake of fruits, vegetables and grains. The control group continued to eat as usual.

After the end of the study (after 8.5 years), the incidence of new cases of breast cancer in both groups was approximately the same. However, in women in the first group, who were diagnosed with breast cancer in the interim period, the risk of dying from any cause was 35% lower than in the control group.

Scientists found that the longer women ate a low-fat diet, the lower their risk of death over the study period (although not all participants were able to reduce their fat intake by up to 20%). Even 20 years after the end of the study, these women had a 15% lower risk of mortality, and the risk of dying from breast cancer was 21% lower.

“This is a very inspiring result for us. We now have a randomized clinical trial showing that a moderate diet available to many can provide health benefits, including a reduced risk of dying from breast cancer,”said study lead author Dr. Rowan Chlebowski, researcher from the Los Angeles Institute for Biomedical Research at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center.

This is the first study to thoroughly test a potential factor that could influence breast cancer mortality. Previous observational studies looked at cancer outcomes based on diet, whereas this study provided volunteers with specific dietary recommendations. The effectiveness of such a diet appears to be related to preventing the growth of established tumors.

“Prior to this study, we lacked data from a prospective randomized controlled trial, which is the gold standard, to show that a dietary approach does indeed reduce the risk of dying from breast cancer,” said oncologist Neil Iyengar of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. did not participate in the study. “Many of us who advocate diet and exercise for cancer treatment are encouraged by the findings of this study because they are the first to show very convincingly that we can improve outcomes and prevent cancer deaths simply by changing our diet.”

The researchers plan to delve deeper into the data (using blood samples taken at the beginning of the study and one year later) to look for factors that changed in women on a low-fat diet compared to the control group.