Striving4Zen

Certain breast-cancer survivors who load up on fruits and vegetables, eating far more than current US guidelines, can slash their risk the tumors will come back by nearly a third, according to a study released yesterday.

The finding held only for women who did not have hot flashes after their cancer therapy, the researchers said - a finding that suggests fruits and vegetables act on estrogen.

Their analysis suggests an explanation for why some studies have shown that eating more fruits and vegetables lowers the risk that breast cancer will come back, while others do not. It may depend on the individual patient, they report in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.

"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.

As estrogen drives the most common type of breast cancer, this suggests that eating extra servings of fruits and vegetables - above the five a day recommended by the federal government - may lower harmful estrogen levels in cancer survivors, the researchers said.

"It appears that a dietary pattern high in fruits, vegetables and fiber . . . may only be important among women with circulating estrogen levels above a certain threshold," said John Pierce of the University of California, San Diego.

The researchers took a second look at data from 3,000 breast-cancer patients in a study aimed at seeing if a diet low in fat and high in fruits and vegetables would keep their cancer from coming back.

Such a diet has been shown to lower overall risk of ever getting breast cancer in the first place.

The women were on average 53, and half were told to double their fruit and vegetable intake to 10 servings a day, eat more fiber and lower fat intake.

About 30% of the original 3,000 breast-cancer survivors said they did not have hot flashes.

The researchers looked at the data on these women and found that only 16% of those who doubled up on fruits and vegetables saw their tumors come back after seven years, compared to 23% of those merely given advice on food guidelines.

SOURCE

Labels: breast cancer, cancer, fruits and veggies, healthy diet, study