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A new study finds that women have a low-fat diet and more fruits, vegetables and grains, reduced their risk of dying from breast cancer. But which of these factors provided the protective effect?
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Cavan Images / Getty Images / Cavan Images RF
A new study finds that women have a low-fat diet and more fruits, vegetables and grains, reduced their risk of dying from breast cancer. But which of these factors provided the protective effect?
Cavan Images / Getty Images / Cavan Images RF
"A Low-Fat Diet Helps Reduce The Risk of Death From Breast Cancer." Did a headline like this catch your eye this week?
Dozens of news organizations, including NPR, reported on a new study that found a low-fat diet that reduced their risk of dying from breast cancer.
The findings of the Federally funded Women's Health Initiative, a huge, long-term, national health study launched back in 1993. At the time it began, women who were enrolled in the study were in their 50s, 60s and 70s.
As part of the study, about 20,000 women were coached to change their diets in a number of ways for at least eight years. "We asked women to reduce their total fat intake," Rowan Chlebowski explains of the Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center. In addition, women were asked to eat more fruits, vegetables and grains. A comparison group of nearly 30,000 women continued to follow their normal diet.
The strength of this study is two-fold: Its size, nearly 50,000 women in all, and the long-term follow-up, nearly 20 years. During the study, some women in both groups were diagnosed with breast cancer, but those who had changed their diets had a 21 percent lower risk of dying from the disease.
"This is significant, because this cancer has been seen," Chlebowski told us.
True that. These findings are significant.
Aim, hold on a minute: Does not this "low-fat" find a source of fish, avocados, olive oil and other plant-based oils? (In fact, we give this advice in our recent Life Kit healthy eating guide.)
Well, when this study was conceived in the early 1990s, it was the height of the low-fat era. Back then, the fat-free boom – with its child poster, Snackwell's cookies – even made it into a Seinfeld episode. "We're looking at something we should not be eating," says Jennifer Ligibel, a medical oncologist at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.
"There's been a lot that we've learned in the time since the study started on healthy fats and unhealthy fats," Ligibel says. We have also learned more about the effects of refined carbohydrates and sugar.
So, was it really an overall reduction in fat that helped protect against death from breast cancer? Or did the benefit come from eating more fruits, vegetables and whole grains that are full of healthy micro-nutrients and fiber?
The answer is: The researchers do not know.
"It is very difficult to sayangle the individual components," says JoAnn Manson, a study co-author. "The trial was designed to reduce total fat since it was reduced to a total reduction of fat." That was the working hypothesis.
"Now, there's a lot more evidence than, especially for [preventing] "Manson, who is the chief of the Division of Preventive Medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital, says," When it comes to preventing cancer, it says the role of dietary fat has been less clear.
"Lentils and lollipops are both low-fat," says Christopher Gardner, director of nutritional studies at the Stanford Prevention Research Center and a professor of medicine at Stanford University. He was not involved in the new study. "Avocados and butter are both high fat." Fat content alone does not determine whether food is healthy or unhealthy.
"When the women [in the Women’s Health Initiative study] "Gardner wrote via email," they were doing more than lowering fat, they were increasing fiber and nutrients, "Gardner wrote via email. their diets.
Gardner says it's less concerned about confusion and the type of fat, "and more importantly," it's more like, " based diet. "
Another point to consider: The women in the study who modified their diets did not lose weight, on average 3 percent of their body weight. It's possible that the reduced risk of death from breast cancer is explained by this. It is clear that obesity is a risk factor for breast cancer, so shedding weight may be a way to reduce risk.
"The percentage of the benefit is not entirely clear," says Manson. She does not think it explains the whole effect.
Bottom line: The new study does not prove that it reduces the amount of fat in your diet. But it fits with a growing body of evidence that a diet full of lots of fruits, vegetables and whole grains can be beneficial.
"I see it as another piece of information," Ligibel says of the new study. She says it's more obvious than diet matters. "Anytime we see that there's something we can do for themselves to lower the risk of developing cancer, or dying from cancer, that's important."
The findings of the Women's Health Initiative study on breast cancer and low-fat diets have not yet been published. Researchers will present their findings at an upcoming meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology.
In the meantime, Ligibel and her colleagues are enrolling women who already have breast cancer in a trial called BWEL. The study will evaluate whether a weight-loss program can reduce the risk of cancer recurrence or dying from the disease.
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