Fruits, Vegetables Can Reduce Breast Cancer Risk
Posted on: Tuesday, 16 December 2008, 12:37 CST
Women may be able to increase their resistance to breast cancer by eating far more than the current U.S. recommended amount of fruits and vegetables, according to a new study.
Researchers reported on Monday that may explain why previous studies have shown that eating more fruits and vegetables lowers the risk that breast cancer will come back, while others do not.
The finding was only true for women who did not have hot flashes after their cancer therapy, the researchers said. This may suggest fruits and vegetables act on estrogen.
"Women with early stage breast cancer who have hot flashes have better survival and lower recurrence rates than women who don't," said Ellen Gold of the University of California Davis, who helped lead the study.
The study team, led by researchers at the Moores Cancer Center at the University of California, San Diego, along with six other sites, including the University of California, Davis, reported its results online December 15, 2008, in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.
"Our interest in looking at this subgroup came because hot flashes are associated with lower circulating estrogen levels, while the absence of hot flashes is associated with higher estrogen levels. Reducing the effect of estrogen is a major treatment strategy in breast cancer," said the WHEL study principal investigator John P. Pierce, Ph.D., Sam M. Walton Professor for Cancer Prevention and director of Cancer Prevention and Control at the UC San Diego School of Medicine and the Moores UCSD Cancer Center.
"It appears that a dietary pattern high in fruits, vegetables and fiber, which has been shown to reduce circulating estrogen levels, may only be important among women with circulating estrogen levels above a certain threshold."
Researchers said about 30 percent of the group of 3,088 breast cancer survivors did not report having hot flashes at onset of the study. About one-half (447) of the "no hot flashes" group were randomized to the special, "intervention" high-vegetable fruit diet while the other half (453) was given the generally recommended diet of five servings of fruits and vegetables a day.
Those on the special “intervention” diet had a significantly lower rate of a second breast cancer event - 16.1 percent - compared to those eating the government-recommended five-a-day dietary pattern - 23.6 percent.
They found the effect was even greater in women who had been through menopause - 47 percent.
"This hypothesis says that if the endocrine therapy is working, no further reduction in estrogen levels would be needed," said Pierce. "If your genes are preventing you from getting a therapeutic dose, then following this rigorous dietary pattern may reduce estrogen levels enough to reduce risk."
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Source: redOrbit Staff & Wire Reports
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