Study: High-Fat Diet May Boost Breast Cancer Risk

Women eating an average of more than 90 grams of fat daily are significantly more likely to develop breast cancer than those eating less than 40 grams, according to researchers at Cambridge University in England.

The report in the journal The Lancet seemed likely to start a new controversy over the question of a link between diet and breast cancer, since many large earlier studies have suggested that diet plays little role in risk of breast cancer.

"Dietary measurement error might explain the absence of a significant association between dietary fat and breast-cancer risk in [these other] studies," the Cambridge researchers contended..

In this study, conducted from 1993 to 1997, researchers had the 13,070 participants keep a daily diary in which they recorded everything they ate. By 2002, 168 of the women had developed breast cancer.

The researchers then matched each of those with breast cancer with four healthy women of the same age, divided all the women into five equal categories based on how how much fat they ate each day, and calculated the difference in breast cancer risk between those who ate the most fat and those who ate the least.

The researchers said that 20 percent of the women in the bracket with highest consumption of saturated fats -- such as those found in fast food and chocolate snacks -- had contracted breast cancer, compared to 14 percent in the lowest category.

"The study shows there is an emerging link between eating too much fatty food and increasing the risk of breast cancer, " said Dr. Shiela Bingham, deputy director of the Medical Research Council's Dunn Human Nutrition Unit in Cambridge.

"The effect seems to be related particularly to saturated fat found mostly in high fat milk, butter, meat and some cereals such as biscuits and cakes," she added.

Other Sources: The Lancet