A poor and high-fat diet seems to be one of
the leading causes of breast cancer, which is much more prevalent in Western
countries.
The
Mediterranean diet, on the other hand, is rich in antioxidants and contains
only a small amount of animal saturated fats. This study looks specifically at
the association of breast cancer and the Mediterranean diet in a Mediterranean
country. 14,807 women took part in the European Prospective Investigation into
Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC), and the results were published in the American
Journal of Clinical Nutrition.
This study looked at what the women ate; it
followed their eating habits for nearly ten years.
The Greek women started the
research by answering an in-depth questionnaire about their diet to see how
they conformed to the Mediterranean diet. From that, they were given a score
from 1 to 9. Those who adhered to typical dietary components got the high score
of 9, while those with minimum adherence scored 1. At the end of the study, 240
cases of breast cancer were reported.
In their report, the researchers indicated
that, in premenopausal women, there was “no significant association between
conformity to the diet and breast cancer risk.” What they did find, though, was
an inverse situation with postmenopausal women. They concluded that “conformity
to the traditional Mediterranean diet is associated with a lower risk of breast
cancer.”
