Low-fat Diet may Lower Breast Cancer Recurrence
Reported May 17, 2005
By Heather Kohn, Ivanhoe Health Correspondent
ORLANDO, Fla. (Ivanhoe Newswire) — A dietary intervention to reduce fat intake improves relapse-free survival by 24 percent in postmenopausal women with early stage breast cancer, report researchers from the Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center.
Lead study author Rowan T. Chlebowski, M.D., Ph.D., says, This study may well represent the first lifestyle change — namely, lowering dietary fat intake — that can have a favorable effect on breast cancer outcome.
A study beginning in 1994 enrolled women who had undergone surgery to remove their tumors and were receiving standard follow-up care. Researchers compared breast cancer recurrence rates among 975 women with early stage breast cancer who consumed a low-fat diet consisting of about 33 grams of fat per day to 1,462 similar women who followed a standard diet averaging about 51 grams of fat a day. The women on the low-fat diet also received eight bi-weekly nutrition counseling sessions as well as ongoing counseling with a nutritionist every three months. The low-fat diet involved cutting margarine, oils, and red meat.
After an average of five years, less than 10 percent of women on the low-fat diet experienced cancer recurrence, compared with more than 12 percent of those on the standard diet.
Dr. Chlebowski concludes, If these results are confirmed in additional trials, reduction of dietary fat intake could be considered part of the management of breast cancer in postmenopausal women. Patients would then have an additional option within their control for reducing the risk of breast cancer recurrence.
SOURCE: Heather Kohn at the 41st Annual Meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology in Orlando, Fla., May 13-17, 2005