Cancer, Cancer Treatment

Monday October 13, 2008 (foodconsumer.org) — In the National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, we will publish a series of reports on studies and others on the disease to raise readers’ awareness of the fact that breast cancer is a preventable disease.

A study published in the Nov. 2008 issue of British Journal of Nutrition identified a dietary pattern that was linked to increased risk of breast cancer.

The study led by Schulz M and colleagues from German Institute of Human Nutrition in Germany was meant to determine if certain diet pattern is associated with risk of breast cancer.

The researchers analyzed data on dietary factors for 15,351 females participating in the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition or EPIC-Potsdam Study.

Subjects were free of cancer when entering the study and during a 6-year follow-up, 137 incident cases of invasive breast cancer were recorded.

Schulz and colleagues identified a food pattern characterized by low consumption of bread, fruit juice, and high consumption of processed meat, fish, butter and other animal fats and margarine.

They found those who adhered closely to this food pattern were at a 100 percent increased risk of breast cancer.

But there was no evidence of effect modification by menopausal status, body weight status and use of hormone replacement therapy.

In conclusion, the researchers said they found evidence that total dietary fat rather than specific dietary fatty acids were associated with breast cancer risk.

Breast cancer is expected to be diagnosed in 185,000 women and the disease kills 45,000 each year in the United States. Many dietary factors and lifestyle parameters have been associated with breast cancer risk.

In the National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, we’d remind women that breast cancer is essentially a preventable disease and they can avoid the disease simply by following a healthy lifestyle including a healthy diet.

Forget about donations solicited by many breast cancer organizations because the federal government has been investing about $20 billion each year for so many years in cancer research and your burden is about $67 each year. The problem is, few dollars are used to study cancer prevention. Much of the funding goes to and disease and drug research and in the end drug companies are the biggest beneficiaries.

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