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Beware the Western Diet
By Lydia Fong
Meat, bread, sweets, and dairy products like cheese are the foods we crave and consume daily. But could a diet full of such fare put you at greater risk of breast cancer? Results from the Shanghai Breast Cancer Study suggest it just might.
Among thousands of women from Shanghai, researchers identified two dietary patterns: a “meat-sweet” diet, including pork, shrimp, chicken, beef, milk, candy and desserts, and a “vegetable-soy” diet, including tofu, cauliflower, beans, bean sprouts and greens. Researchers found that the former diet—classified as western because of all the meats and starches—increases the risk of estrogen-positive breast cancer in postmenopausal Chinese women, especially heavier ones, according to the July issue of Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention. Breast cancer risk was not associated with the vegetable-soy diet.
The reason for the link isn’t entirely clear, says Marilyn Tseng, Ph.D., a researcher at the Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia. But it might be related to the fact that obesity is already associated with higher risk of breast cancer. “Until scientists parse it out,” Tseng says, she recommends caution in adopting a western-style diet, especially if you have an alternative. “Weight control would probably be a good idea all around.”
