NIH-AARP Diet and Health Study: Dietary Fat and Postmenopausal Invasive Breast Cancer
The possible existence of a link between the amount of fat in a woman's diet and her risk of developing breast cancer has long been one of the most controversial issues of nutritional epidemiology. Beyond that, there are subsidiary questions about the type of fat consumed and the use of menopausal hormone therapy.
In this NIH-AARP Diet and Health Study of 188,736 women between the ages of 50 and 71, investigators detected a direct association between dietary fat intake and the risk of invasive breast cancer.
- Doubling one’s total fat consumption from 20 percent to 40 percent was associated with a 15 percent greater risk of breast cancer, no matter what the source (dairy products or red, white or processed meat) or type of fat (saturated or monounsaturated).
- The researchers also found that the association between dietary fat and breast cancer was higher (greater risk) among those women who were not using hormone therapy. According to the authors, “this is the first report of an interaction between dietary fat intake and menopausal hormone therapy with respect to breast cancer risk.”
During the average 4.4-year follow-up period, 3,501 participants developed invasive breast cancers. The study participants had no previous history of cancer, were AARP members, and resided in California, Florida, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, North Carolina, Louisiana, and metropolitan Atlanta and Detroit. Information about the women’s eating patterns was obtained from their responses to survey questions about frequency of consumption, portion size and the particular foods in their normal diets.
View the abstract or visit the study website to learn more about the NIH-AARP Diet and Health Study.
Further information about the NIH-AARP Diet and Health Study may be obtained by contacting Nancy Wood of AARP at media@aarp.org or 202-434-2583.
