Diet in the Epidemiology of Breast Cancer

A variety of studies have shown that diets high in fat, particularly polyunsaturated, have enhanced the production of tumors in animals challenged with chemical carcinogens. Other studies have found an apparent contradiction of no difference in the incidence of breast cancer among women with varying levels of serum cholesterol as measured decades earlier. The present study concerns 2024 breast cancer cases and 1463 control patients without neoplasms or pathology of the reproductive and digestive organs, seen at Roswell Park Memorial Institute from 1958 to 1965. Based upon the assessments of their varying ingestion of fats from their own reports of diets, no difference in risk was found. Similarly, there was no difference in risk of breast cancer associated with ingesting diets containing various levels of either vitamin C or the cruciferous vegetables. Risk for breast cancer in women 55 years of age and older increased somewhat with decreases in ingestion of foods containing vitamin A.