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# Eating too much fat may raise breast cancer risk
- URL: https://www.foodconsumer.org/fat_breast_cancer_0726120834/
- Published: 2012-07-26T21:31:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-09-22T16:23:25.000Z
- Description: Mice fed a fatty-acid-free diet developed tumors later, less often and in smaller numbers than mice on a standard diet, but the diet did not slow growth of tumors once they appeared. The authors suggest cutting dietary fat may protect against tumor formation rather than existing tumors.
- Author: Food Consumer
- Tags: Diet, Nutrition, #vivvo-import

By David Liu, PHD

Breast Cancer News.

Thursday July 16, 2012 (foodconsumer.org) -- Eating too much fat may boost risk of developing breast cancer, according to a study in the June 22, 2012 issue of Journal of Cellular Physiology.

Previous research has shown an association between higher risk of cancer and increased intake of dietary fats, but the association between fat reduction and breast cancer recurrence has not been consistent, according to the authors of the study.

A. Rossini of Dipartimento Scienze della Salute, Via Mangiagalli 31, 20133 Milan, Italy and colleagues conducted a trial in mice to see how a fatty acid free diet would affect the breast cancer development.

In the trial, mice were given a fatty acid free diet beginning at 112, 35 and 30 days of age. It was observed that in all the experiments, tumor appearance was delayed, tumor incidence was reduced and the number of breast cancer tumors per mouse was lower, compared to those observed in standard diet fed mice.

By contrast, feeding a fatty acid free diet did not slow the tumor growth rate in all experiments.

The researchers concluded "these findings indicate that a FA-free diet reduces tumor incidence and latency but not tumor growth rate, suggesting that a reduction in dietary FAs (fatty acids) in humans may have a protective effect on tumorigenesis but not on tumors once they appear."

Breast cancer is expected to be diagnosed in 220,000 women in the U.S. in 2012 and the disease is expected to kill 37,000 men in the country in the same year, according to the National Cancer Institute.