Diet

A study by the National Cancer Institute found a modest increase in cancer risk for postmenopausal women who eat a high fat diet. The study followed 188,736 postmenopausal women for 4.4 years and found that women whose diets contained the most fat were 15% more likely to develop breast cancer than women who ate the least fat.

Good nutrition and moderate exercise can lower the risk of dying from breast cancer by as much as 50 percent, even among women who are overweight or obese, according to new research conducted by the Moores Cancer Center at the University of California in San Diego and published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.

A large US study by the Kaiser Permanente Medical Program suggests that it did not matter whether women drank beer, wine or spirits, they all raised the risk of breast cancer to the same extent. The study found that the increase in breast cancer risk due to three or more alcoholic drinks a day is similar to that posed by smoking a pack of cigarettes or more a day.

The National Cancer Research Institute conference in Birmingham, UK earlier this month heard that middle-aged women who lose weight and exercise twice weekly are 40% less likely to develop breast cancer. Prof. Tony Howell, an oncologist at Manchester University Hospital Trust, said weight loss was the key factor, followed by a low-fat diet with plenty of oily fish.

For women with a strong family history that was not associated with known cancer syndromes, dietary factors may be associated with breast density, a strong predictor of breast cancer risk, according to a study published in Breast Cancer Research. Among 157 high-risk women, breast density was inversely associated with Vitamin D intake; by contrast, higher than average protein intake was associated with higher breast density.