There are more evidence that won high-fat diets to a modest increase in the risk of breast cancer among older women. But everyone agrees that more study is needed to prove an association once and for all.
In the largest study to resolve the issue, researchers at the National Cancer Institute (NCI) asked for 188,736 postmenopausal women on food they ate and then followed women for an average of 4.4 years.
They found that women whose diets included most fats were 15% more prone to develop breast cancer than women who ate less fat. The association was seen in both overweight and normal weight women.
"Fifteen percent is modest, but can have a huge impact because breast cancer is so common," Anne CM Thikeaut, PhD researcher, says WebMD. "This is certainly a question that deserves more research."
High Reps Vs Low Reps For Fat Loss - High-Fat Diet Linked to Breast Cancer
The researchers have studied the issue of decades, but there is still a little consensus on whether fat intake influences the risk of breast cancer. In a recent analysis of 14 studies, women who eat more fat had a risk of 1% higher breast cancer compared to women who ate less.
Eat a low-fat diet to reduce the risk of breast cancer by 9% in a recently reported women's health initiative intervention trial. This association was considered marginally statistically significant, meaning that it was not likely due to chance.
In the newly published study, Thiebaut and Nci colleagues followed women between 50 and 71 years of participating in the largest national health-aarp diet and health study institutes.
Participants concluded a detailed survey to determine their eating habits at the entrance of the study. During the average accompaniment of 4.4 years, 3,501 of women developed breast cancer.
compared to women whose diets had an average of 20% of the calories of fat, women who derive about 40% of their calories from fat sources had a risk of 15% increase breast cancer .
The types of fats women ate they seemed to have little bearing at risk. No further increase at risk was observed among women who ate large amounts of saturated fats, as suggested in several other studies.
Thiebaut and colleagues conclude that their findings "should contribute to the ongoing debate on the association between dietary fat and the risk of breast cancer."
The study appears in the March 21 edition of the National Cancer Institute.
in an editorial accompanies, Stephanie Smith-Warner, PhD and Meir Harilffer, MD, Boston Harvard Public School, write that there is much more evidence binding to obesity to breast cancer in elderly women .
They suggest that public health messages should focus on getting women to lose extra weight instead of taking them to restrict fat into their diets.
"of a [breast cancer] prevention perspective, interventions to control the amount of body fat are likely to have a greater impact on breast cancer incidence than a reduction in fat intake," they write.
