Top > Entertainment > 2005 > October > 2005-10-17

Low-fat Diet Could Help Prevent Breast Cancer

(WINS), the Women?s Intervention Nutrition Study, has conducted a research study regarding women and breast cancer. The recent results show that there is a renewed hope for breast cancer survivors. The women who followed a lowfat diet and maintained a healthy lifestyle in this study reduced their risk, by 24 percent, of a recurrence during the next five years. Although it is important to know the exact amounts of foods and fats these women ate, a low-fat diet might only be a part of their low-risk outlook.

This important study tracked two groups of women aged 48 to 79 for five years who had received treatment for early breast cancers. One group received nutrition counseling to learn how to reduce their fat consumption, while the other group was merely told about healthful eating without fat reduction. The first group decreased the fat in their diets from about 29 percent of calories to about 20 percent, eating an average of close to 33 grams of fat a day. The second group averaged about 51 grams daily.

An examination showed that some women in the first group who consistently met the fat targets set for this group chose lower-fat types of cheese, red meat, poultry, added fat (like salad dressing) and sweets. The biggest reason these women succeeded better at meeting the fat goals, however, is that they cut back more on high-fat foods, such as muffins, doughnuts, cookies, snack foods, dairy desserts, cheese, nuts, eggs, red meat and added fats. Low-fat diets may also cause weight loss, lowering cancer risk.

Studies repeatedly link both overweight and weight gain with a greater risk of postmenopausal breast cancer and breast cancer recurrence. In the Nurses? Health Study, large weight gains after a diagnosis of breast cancer correlated with a 64 percent greater risk of recurrence, smaller weight gains led to smaller increases in risk.