Fatty food diet ‘can double risk of breast cancer’

WOMEN who eat too much fat greatly increase the risk of breast cancer, according to new research.

Those who eat more than 90 grammes of fat daily are twice as likely to develop the disease as those who consume less than 40 grammes.

The discovery emerged after the diet of more than 13,000 women taking part in a major cancer investigation was closely watched.

The research used food diaries which participants completed daily, rather than depending on the more usual approach of filling in questionnaires. With this method, a clear link emerged.

Project leader for the Irish Cancer Society Abbey Langtry said the fear that there was a link between fat intake and breast cancer was well-founded.

“In Japan, where women eat a low-fat diet, the breast cancer rates are much lower. Yet if a Japanese woman moves to live in a Western society such as the US, her chance of getting breast cancer increases.

“If she has a daughter and brings her up in that society, then her daughter will be as susceptible to breast cancer as the local population. The fear is that it is linked to diet,” she said.

A spokeswoman for BreastCheck said there was the added problem of later diagnosis of breast cancer in heavier women because lumps were not as easily detected.

The latest study, by experts from the British Medical Research Council’s Dunn Human Nutrition Unit in Cambridge and published in The Lancet medical journal, found that women in the top 20% bracket for consumption of saturated fats were roughly twice as likely as women in the lowest 20% bracket to develop breast cancer.

The women had been carefully matched so other factors which might skew the results, such as other unhealthy lifestyles, were taken into account.

Dr Sheila Bingham, the unit’s deputy director, said the study showed there was an emerging link between eating too much fatty food and increasing the risk of breast cancer.

More than 1,700 cases of breast cancer are diagnosed in Ireland each year.