Low-Fat Diet May Help Breast Cancer

Dec. 16, 2006 (San Antonio) -- Updated results from what researchers call the first study to directly show that lifestyle changes can improve the outlook for people with cancersuggests a low-fat diet can help prevent breast cancerrecurrence.

In the study of more than 2,400 postmenopausal women with early breast cancer, those who cut down on fats in their diet were about one-fifth less likely to either suffer a recurrence or die over the next six to seven years, compared with those who continued to eat their usual foods, according to the updated report.

Women whose tumors were not fueled by hormones -- about 30% of women with breast cancer -- benefited most.

Their chance of recurrence was cut by more than half, and their risk of dying was slashed by two-thirds, says researcher Rowan T. Chlebowski, MD, a medical oncologist at the Los Angeles Biomedical Institute at the Harbor-University of California-Los Angeles Medical Center in Torrance, Calif.

"That's as good or better than any treatment intervention we have for this type of disease," which is notoriously difficult to treat, says C. Kent Osborne, MD, a breast cancer specialist at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston who was not involved with the work.

In contrast, there was little benefit for women with hormone-receptor-positive tumors. The growth of those breast cancers is fueled by hormones; it's the most common type of the disease.

Low-Fat Diet and Breast Cancer

The study, presented here at the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium, included 2,437 women aged 48 to 75.

All had surgery to remove breast tumors, followed by radiation, chemotherapy, and hormone treatment, if needed. Every three months, they all got general dietary guidance.

But nearly 1,000 of the women also entered an intensive nutritionprogram, which included eight one-on-one sessions with a dietitian every other week, followed by quarterly visits. There were also monthly support groups.

The dietitian asked patients what they were eating and taught them which foods contained fat and how much fat -- even how to count fat grams. The goal was to reduce dietary fat intake to 20% or less of daily calories, compared with 45% for the average American.