Low-Fat Dietary Pattern and Risk of Invasive Breast Cancer

[Guest guest]

"HSI - Jenny Thompson" < hsiresearch

HSI e-Alert - Crowd Noise

February 13, 2006

..

 

Dear Reader,

 

Now we know how much it costs to build a Tower of Babel: around $415

million.

 

That's the approximate cost of the low-fat diet study published last

week in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The

results: chatter, chatter and more chatter.

 

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What it was

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You may have heard that the study was about heart disease. That's

just chatter. The title of the study reveals the basics: "Low-Fat

Dietary Pattern and Risk of Invasive Breast Cancer."

 

Now I'm all for studying potential methods of breast cancer

prevention, but to devote hundreds of millions of dollars to this

study was like betting the farm that the mainstream's beloved low-

fat diet would win big on one roll of the dice. Turns out, it was a

long shot that didn't pay off. Sure, there's probably a link between

dietary choices and breast cancer risk, but at best, diet is only

going to be one piece of the puzzle.

 

The study was conducted by the Women's Health Initiative (WHI) of

the National Institutes of Health (yep - our tax dollars at work).

Nearly 49,000 postmenopausal women participated. For a period of

about eight years, more than 19,500 of the women agreed to cut their

fat intake to no more than 20 percent. They were also asked to eat

six servings of grain and five servings of fruits and vegetables

every day.

 

The results: the diet had virtually no effect on breast cancer. More

than 29,000 subjects ate whatever they wanted for eight years, and

the rate of invasive breast cancer was nearly the same in both

groups.

 

And this is where the chatter begins to escalate into a roar.

 

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Chit chat

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The WHI team must have felt pretty confident going in. After all,

the study was launched in 1993, back in the days when the mainstream

considered "low-fat" to be the gold standard diet.

 

So, what went wrong? According to the Associated Press, researchers

offered this speculative chatter:

 

* The women in the intervention portion of the study may have

started this "healthy" diet too late in life to have an effect

* Many of the women didn't actually stick to the diet as well as

they should have

* Most of them remained overweight, compromising positive

effects of the diet

 

That last item is my favorite. They put nearly 20,000 women on a low-

fat diet for eight years and most of them remained overweight? Is it

just me, or is that the REAL headline that should have come out of

this study?

 

I asked HSI Panelist Allan Spreen, M.D., for his take on the study.

He called it "silly" and added: "A low-fat diet MUST, by definition,

be high carb. All you get in a diet are fats, proteins, and carbs,

and most proteins are attached to fats, so there just isn't much

else to eat. Low-fat diets also taste awful, so sugar, refined salt

(and often flavor enhancers like MSG) have to be added. High carb

intake is what's made us the fattest, unhealthiest country of nearly

all the 'civilized' nations, in spite of our 'best medical system in

the world'!"

 

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If only...

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I mentioned above that the study wasn't focused on heart disease.

But the incidence of heart disease was also monitored, as were data

on cardiovascular disease, stroke and colorectal cancer. The low-fat

diet provided no significant risk reduction for any of these

conditions.

 

But haven't we heard for YEARS now that low-fat diets are heart

healthy? Here's some chatter offered up to NutraIngredients from a

Johns Hopkins researcher: The diet used in the study didn't include

reduced salt and increased intake of potassium - two measures that

(according to the American Heart Association) lower blood pressure

and help lower cardiovascular disease risk. Other researchers

suggest that if the intervention diet had been based on the

Mediterranean diet, the study might have produced beneficial results.

 

Would any of these adjustments really have made a significant

difference? I doubt it, but I'd vote for ABC to do an Extreme

Makeover: NIH Health Study edition. At least that way they could get

sponsors to pay for it the second time around.

 

 

****************************************************

 

....and another thing

 

Gotta go, gotta go, gotta go right now?

 

This week I found a very friendly message in my e-mail inbox. It was

sent by an HSI member named Carroll who has a tip for anyone coping

with an overactive bladder.

 

Carroll writes: "I would like to share some info I have personally

discovered. Those many trips to the bathroom have been eliminated

for me by parsley. I make a tea by rinsing a bunch (about 1" across)

and removing the bulk of the stems, boiling for a while and

straining, leaving about 2 quarts of tea, which I drink.

 

"The boiled parsley is compressed to remove the liquid, diced

somewhat, placed on some whole wheat bread with a sprinkle of salt.

I tried the tea only and found great improvement in urine flow and

not needing to make those night time trips to the bathroom. But

found much better results when I started eating the boiled parsley.

 

"This will clear up urinary tract infections better than antibiotics

at least for me. How nice to sleep thru the night."

 

And how nice to forgo an unnecessary round of antibiotics.

 

To Your Good Health,

 

Jenny Thompson

 

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Sources:

 

"Low-Fat Dietary Pattern and Risk of Invasive Breast Cancer" Journal

of the American Medical Association, Vol. 295, No. 6, 2/8/06,

jama.ama-assn.org

"Low-Fat Diet Does Not Cut Health Risks, Study Finds" Gina Kolata,

The New York Times, 2/8/06, nytimes.com

"Eating Less Fat Offers Little Disease Protection" The Associated

Press, 2/7/06, msnbc.msn.com

"Low Fat Diet 'Has No Effect on Heart Risk'" NutraIngredients,

2/8/06, nutraingredients.com

 

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