A new French study suggests that postmenopausal women who eat a plant-based diet have a significantly reduced chance of developing breast cancer.
Breast cancer risk was reduced by an average of 14 percent among more than 65,000 women who had a primarily plant-based diet over two decades.
It is “healthy” that’s the keyword, however. Women’s breast cancer risk was reduced only when their diets included considerable amounts of whole grains, fruit, vegetables, nuts, legumes, vegetable oils, and tea or coffee — even if red meat and chicken were periodically included in the diet.
As a result, older women who followed a primarily plant-based diet that was labelled unhealthy because of their substantial consumption of sugary fruit juices, refined grains, potatoes, sugar-sweetened drinks and sweets had no preventive effect. As a result, these women’s chance of developing breast cancer increased by around 20%.
“The results emphasize that increasing the intake of good plant foods, and lowering the consumption of less healthy plant foods, can help prevent all forms of breast cancer,” stated main study author Sanam Shah.
“Not all plant-based diets are equally healthful,” she cautioned.
As a doctoral epidemiology student at the University of Paris-Saclay in France pointed out, given the “usually ‘good’ health image of diets lacking meat,” it is possible that some people may find this finding shocking.
However, Shah and her colleagues did not only look at vegetarian women. There were no vegetarians or vegans in the group of women.
On the other hand, investigators focused on women whose diets contained some meat and poultry but were still predominantly plant-based.
Finally, the researchers examined whether the healthiest plants had a distinct effect on breast cancer risk than the less healthy ones, an approach that had previously been missed in previous studies.
French female participants aged 53 completed nutritional questionnaires between 1993 and 2005 as part of the research.
The ladies were divided into two groups: those who mainly ate animal products and those who ate primarily plant products.
Nearly 4,000 of the women were diagnosed with breast cancer throughout the course of the study, which lasted an average of 21 years.
According to the research team, people who eat the healthiest plant-based meals have a decreased chance of developing breast cancer, whereas those who eat the least nutritious plant-based diets have a far higher risk.
For the reasons why Shah posits that a higher fibre content in plant-based diets “may lessen cancer risk through anti-inflammatory and antioxidant effects.”
She said that a healthy plant-based diet and a lower risk of breast cancer had been linked for some time, but the mechanisms by which they work are still unknown.
Shah also noted that the results may not apply to younger women since it is not yet evident. When it comes to the development of breast cancer, there are “differences” between breast cancers that are premenopausal and postmenopausal.
Shah presented the research findings online at the American Society for Nutrition’s annual conference on Tuesday. In the absence of peer review publication, the results should be considered preliminary.
Nutritionist Lona Sandon in Dallas agreed that additional investigation is required.
According to Sandon, head of clinical nutrition at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center’s School of Health Professions, the benefits of eating a plant-based diet cannot be overstated. This research did not include her.
According to Sandon, processing or preparation methods are key to making a plant-based diet nutritious or harmful. Due to changes in nutrients or additional additives, “in general, greater processing means a worse quality product.”
In light of this difference, “there seems to be no drawback to selecting minimally processed plant-based diets for everyone when it comes to cancer risk,” she said.
On the other hand, Sandon stressed the need for reasonable expectations. “If you wait until you are 55, you may already have damaged or cancerous cells in your body. Since you have just been eating a healthy plant-based diet since your 20s, the advantage of risk-lowering is significantly smaller for you.”
