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Eating Mediterranean diet may cut breast cancer risk

05/30/2011 15:14:00 admin
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By David Liu, Ph.D. and editing by Elizabeth Hutchinson

Monday, May 30, 2011 (foodconsumer.org) -- Eating a Mediterranean diet may help cut the risk of breast cancer in premenopausal women, according to a new study in the May 18, 2011 issue of the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

The study, led by J.E. Cade of University of Leeds in Leeds, UK and Colleagues, showed that premenopausal women who adhered most closely to the Mediterranean diet were 35 percent less likely to be diagnosed with breast Cancer when compared with those who adhered to the diet minimally.

However, no significant association was found in postmenopausal women.

The researchers also studied the World Health Organization Healthy Diet Index and found that the WHO-recommended diet was not correlated with breast cancer risk.

For the study, Cade et al. followed 33,731 women for an average of nine years during which 828 incident cases of breast cancer were identified.

The findings were not exactly the same as what was found earlier by other researchers.

Antonia Trichopoulou from Epidemiology and Medical Statistics in Athens, Greece, along with colleagues from the Harvard School of Public Health, conducted an epidemiological study and found that postmenopausal women whose diet was two points closer on a zero to nine scale to a traditional Mediterranean diet were 22 percent less likely to develop breast cancer.

However, they also found that a two point increase in the adherence was not significantly associated with reduction in the risk for breast cancer in pre-menopausal women.

This study was published in the July 14, 2010 issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

The Mediterranean diet has been linked to reduced risk of many other diseases and conditions including depression, inflammation, premature death, diabetes, birth defects, cardiovascular disease, Alzheimer's disease, and being obese or overweight.

The Mediterranean diet includes large quantities of olive oil, legumes, fruits, vegetables, whole grains or unrefined cereals, and moderate amounts of dairy products—mostly cheese and yogurt, fish, nuts, and low quantities of meat and meat products.

Breast cancer is diagnosed in more than 175,000 women each year in the United States and kills approximately 50,000 women annually in the country, according to the National Cancer Institute.

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