WASHINGTON, May 16 /PRNewswire/ -- The following is a statement of Ritva
Butrum, Senior Science Advisor to the American Institute for Cancer Research
(AICR):
We at AICR are greatly encouraged by the results from the Women's
Intervention Nutrition Study (WINS) announced this morning, which show that
breast cancer survivors who reduced the amount of fat in their diets were
significantly less likely to experience a recurrence of breast cancer over the
next five years.
As a cancer charity devoted exclusively to the study of diet, nutrition
and cancer, AICR has called for more and better science on the role of diet
upon cancer survivorship for years. The WINS study is one example of such
long-overdue research, and we applaud it.
We now have direct clinical evidence that small, healthy changes can
significantly lower the risk of recurrence.
We at AICR hope that breast cancer survivors will be empowered by the
knowledge that they have an active and vitally important role to play in
combating cancer.
The precise relationship between dietary fat and breast cancer risk has
been controversial. Until the 1980s, high levels of dietary fat were thought
to be strongly associated with increased risk for breast cancer. In the
1990s, some research results cast doubt on this link.
Today's results from the WINS study suggest that it may be necessary to
reexamine those early conclusions.
Determining the kind of diet that is best to lower cancer risk is a long,
ongoing and piecemeal process. Final, comprehensive conclusions may take
years to arrive. In the meantime, people concerned about cancer and cancer
recurrence would do well to eat a healthy diet rich in a variety of
vegetables, fruits, whole grains and beans and low in fat and salt.
The scientific thinking on fat and breast cancer is still forming. (In
fact, AICR researchers are currently conducting studies suggesting that
different kinds of fat exert vastly different influences upon breast cancer
risk.) Today, the millions of breast cancer survivors across the US should
take heart in the knowledge that what we eat and how we live has a direct and
demonstrable protective effect.
The WINS study, and several thousand other diet-cancer studies, are now
being reviewed by an expert international panel for the second landmark
AICR/WCRF report, Food, Nutrition, Physical Activity and Cancer: A Global
Perspective. This report, which will issue a series of dietary
recommendations, is the most comprehensive examination of the diet-cancer link
ever undertaken. It is due to be published in 2007.
The American Institute for Cancer Research (AICR) is the cancer charity
that fosters research on diet and cancer and educates the public about the
results.
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