Eating large amounts of vegetables may cut risk of certain breast cancers by nearly 50 percent, a study published in the Oct 14, 2010 issue of American Journal of Epidemiology suggests.
The study showed women who ate 2 or more servings per day were 43 percent less likely to acquire estrogen receptor negative (ER-)/progesterone receptor negative (PR-) breast cancer, compared to those eating less than 4 servings per week.
For the study, Dr. Deborah A. Boggs at Slone Epidemiology Center at Boston University and colleagues followed 52,000 women aged 21 to 69 years at baseline in 1995 who enrolled in the Black Women's Health Study for 12 years and identified 1,268 incident cases of breast cancer.
The researchers found overall there was no association between total fruit, total vegetable and total fruit and vegetable intakes and breast cancer risk.
However, they did find women eating 2 or more servings of vegetables were at 43 percent reduced risk of ER-/PR- breast cancer compared to those eating less than 4 servings per week.
Not all vegetables have the same protective effect against breast cancer. Cruciferous vegetables and carrot were found to significantly decrease the risk of the disease.
The researchers concluded "Study findings suggest that frequent consumption of vegetables is inversely associated with risk of estrogen receptor-negative/progesterone receptor-negative breast cancer, and that specific vegetables may be associated with a decreased risk of breast cancer overall."
Another study published in the May 2010 issue of Nutrition and Cancer also showed there was an inverse association between vegetable intake and breast cancer risk.
Hyejin Yua and colleagues from Ewha Womans University in Seoul, Korea compared 358 cases of breast cancer with 360 healthy controls for their dietary habits including their intake of vegetables and found the association after adjustment for non-dietary factors.
However, they found pickled vegetable intake and its proportion relative to total vegetable intake were positively correlated with risk of breast cancer. Particularly, people with the highest ratio of pickled vegetable intake to the total vegetable intake were 6 times as likely as those with the lowest ratio to develop breast cancer.
Vegetables are considered healthy foods as they contain bioactive phytochemicals, vitamins, minerals, antioxidants which all together may help prevent breast cancer.
Breast cancer will be diagnosed in more than 175,000 women in the United States and kill about 50,000 this year in the country, according to American Cancer Society. The disease is expected to be diagnosed in 14 percent of women in the country in their lifetime.
More reports will be published here in the National Breast Cancer Awareness Month to help readers better understand breast cancer and how to prevent the disease.
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