Eating a low fat diet

babycakes
babycakes Member Posts: 8
edited March 2014 in Breast Cancer #1
I heard on NBC this morning about a study that was done with 2400 people who had completed treatment for breast cancer. Half of the folks on the study ate normally and the other half had low fat diets. The low fat diet group had a 24% lower rate of recurrance than the group that ate a higher fat diet. Thought this was interesting and worth sharing.

Comments

  • lindatn
    lindatn Member Posts: 229
    #2
    In that study women who were er- there was a 42 percent lower rate of recurrance. I am a vegan since I had cancer dx three years ago. I had a rapid growing cancer, two lymph nodes cancerous and felt I had to do everything I could and this was one thing I chose to do. No white sugar either. So far so good. you do miss the meat and ice cream for awhile but it goes away as you eat apples and carrots instead, melons are great this time of year. Linda
  • epgnyc
    epgnyc Member Posts: 137
    #3
    I heard the same news this morning and it just so happened that I had my 6-month check-up with my oncologist today so I asked him about it. He is at Memorial Sloan-Kettering in NY and said that he was personally involved in a research project at MSKCC a few years ago into the same subject -- the impact of a low-fat diet on breast cancer. He said to be effective at all, it has to be an extremely low-fat diet (maximum of 15% of calories from fat) and even with such a motivated group as breast cancer survivors it was almost impossible to sustain over the long-term. I asked him what he thought about the fact that ER- negative women had even less of a recurrence rate with the low-fat diet than did ER+ women. He said it's probably because ER- women aren't on any of the drugs (Arimidex, Tomixfen, Femara, etc.) that lower recurrence and therefore it has more of an impact on them than on those whose rates of recurrence have already been lowered. Makes sense to me. I try not to eat a diet high in fats for general health reasons, but based on what I read and my conversation with my doctor, I'm not going to go crazy trying to eat no fats at all. I guess like everything else about breast cancer, it's an individual decision.
  • inkblot
    inkblot Member Posts: 698 Member
    #4
    Just wanted to interject my thoughts on this, as well as share the info from the news story I saw about this study:

    Being conscientious about our diets is always important and sensibly limiting fats is always a sound practice. While I'm not maniacal about fats, I'm an ovo-lacto vegetarian, so I don't consume meats, fish or poultry but there are many, many foods loaded with various types of fats which are not good for anyone, in large amounts, so we have to read labels, educate ourselves about foods without labels, (such as fresh meats, etc.) and choose wisely. I think balance in our diets is the only key which fits sanely. Some of those extremely low carb and/or high protein diets just don't give our bodies a healthy balance of what we need and our bodies need some fats in order to function well.

    The report I saw on this study, concluded that the results are considered controversial as "some other studies" (which they did not quote) had yielded different results. I've not had time to look up this study yet (and find and compare those "other" studies with conflicting and/or differing outcomes) but look forward to doing that soon.
    Will try to post info as I get some details, etc..

    Perhaps all we need really is to eat sensibly and well, stay active, manage our stress well and stay away from fads and other things which may, in fact, make us less healthy?

    Love, light and laughter,
    Ink

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