Thursday July 28, 2016 (foodconsumer.org) -- Dr. M. A. Merritta at Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, Massachusetts and colleagues conducted a study and found evidence suggesting that intake of trans fat can increase risk for epithelial ovarian cancer while eating omega 3 fatty acids may decrease the risk.

Harvard scientists have earlier found that intake of trans fat was linked to increased risk of death from cardiovascular disease and in the United States, trans fat consumption is associated with more than 100,000 deaths each year.

The current New England case-control study of 1872 cases and 1978 population based controls were surveyed for their dietary fat intake along with epithelial ovarian cancer risk factors.

Results of statistical analyses show that women in the highest quartile of intake of omega 3 and omega 6 fatty acids were 21% and 23% less likely to be diagnosed with epithelial ovarian cancer than those in the lowest quartile, respectively.

Women who had high consumption of trans fat were found 30% more likely to be diagnosed with epithelial ovarian cancer than those who had low intake of trans fat.

The associations did not seem to vary by tumor histologic subtypes.  However, high intake of omega 6 fatty acids seems to be more protective against endometrioid invasive tumors.  Women eating high amounts of omega 3 fatty acids were 42% less likely to develop epithelial ovarian cancer than those eating low amounts.

Omega 3 and omega 6 fatty acids are found high in flaxseed.   Dr. Johanna Budwig, a biochemist, found all cancer patients have low levels of lipoprotein and phospholipid in their blood and suggested a diet with only cottage cheese and flaxseed oil may be used to treat cancer.  Some people claimed that they used the diet and cured their cancers.

Intake of trans fat is known to lower serum good lipoprotein cholesterol and increase bad lipoprotein cholesterol among other things, which at least partially explains why trans fat intake can increase risk of cardiovascular disease and death from the disease.  The detrimental effect of trans fat on the cancer risk is less known to food consumers.  (David Liu)

M A Merritt1,2,3, D W Cramer1,2, S A Missmer1,4,5, A F Vitonis2, L J Titus6 and K L Terry1,2, Dietary fat intake and risk of epithelial ovarian cancer by tumour histology, British Journal of Cancer (2014) 110, 1392–1401. doi:10.1038/bjc.2014.16