Two breast cancer experts responded to the findings with caution, noting that a cause-and-effect relationship is far from certain.
“It is plausible that estrogen receptor-negative breast cancer is influenced by nutritional factors,” said Dr. Paolo Boffetta, director of the Institute for Translation Epidemiology at the Mount Sinai Medical Center, in New York City.
“However, eating fruits and vegetables is closely tied to environmental factors and healthy lifestyle, such as weight control, physical activity and other healthy eating habits,” he noted. “Since these are so closely tied together, it is difficult to disentangle the specific effect of fruits and vegetables.”
And Dr. Stephanie Bernik, chief of surgical oncology at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City, agreed.
“The study fails to control for some bias that may occur when observing the two populations,” she said. “Perhaps the women that eat well also exercise, drink little alcohol, don’t smoke and eat less animal fats overall.”
Still, living healthily is always a good idea, and “the study does add some evidence that a healthy lifestyle can perhaps help decrease the risk of breast cancer,” Bernik said.
The study was published Jan. 24 in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
The Food That May Lower Your Breast Cancer Risk was originally published on blackdoctor.org
