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as we have suspected, relationship between diet and breast cancer depends on subtype
26 January 2007
Diet, body composition linked to breast cancer pathology
A woman's diet and her body composition may make her prone to particular forms of breast cancer, research suggests.
A team led by Göran Landberg, from Malmo University Hospital in Sweden, has linked women's intake of energy and total fat, and their body mass index (BMI), to more malignant breast tumors.
The team notes in the journal Breast Cancer Research: "The general lack of clear associations between diet and breast cancer in epidemiological studies may partly be explained by the fact that breast cancer is a heterogeneous disease that may have disparate genetic associations and different etiologic bases."
To explore this possibility, they analyzed data from the Malmo Diet and Cancer study. Information about diet and body measurements obtained before diagnosis was correlated with subcategories of breast cancer based on conventional pathology parameters, proliferation, and expression of key cell cycle regulators.
The researchers found that patients with a large hip circumference or high BMI were significantly more likely to have high-grade tumors than other patients.
They also found significant relationships with tumor proliferation, with a low overall energy intake, unadjusted fat intake and low intakes of saturated, monounsaturated, and polyunsaturated fatty acids each significantly linked to high proliferation.
Low energy intake and unadjusted fat intake were also associated with cyclin D overexpression, whereas cyclin E expression was positively correlated with fat intake, the researchers report in the journal Breast Cancer Research.
Estrogen receptor status and expression of the tumor suppressor p27 were not, however, linked to either diet or body composition.
"Low energy and low total fat (polyunsaturated fatty acids in particular) intakes, and high BMI, were associated with relatively more malignant breast tumors," the researchers summarize.
They recommend that, when studying the relationship of breast cancer with diet and body composition, it might be useful to subgroup breast cancer patients according to proliferation, tumor grade, and expression of cyclin D1 and 3.
Landberg et al conclude: "Further studies are needed in order to improve the delineation of women at risk for developing highly malignant breast cancer and, hopefully, to contribute to novel prevention strategies."
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