High Consumption of Protein Associated with Breast Cancer

A study in BMJ establishes the risk associated with protein and breast cancer in early adulthood .Foods that are major sources of animal or vegetable proteins have not been consistently associated with risk of breast cancer in the time past. ‘The potential influence of dietary protein on risk of breast cancer has created considerable scientific attention. High protein intake may affect the risk of breast cancer by increasing the insulin-like growth factor that plays important roles in tissue growth and tumor progression’ says another author; Levine ME

Maryam Farvid in her recent study used health professionals in the United States as the Participants ;88 803 premenopausal women from the Nurses’ Health Study II who completed a questionnaire on diet and ‘the outcome revealed Incident cases of invasive breast carcinoma, identified through self-report and confirmed by pathology report’ she said. A total cases of 2,830 were documented during the tenure of the research (20 years). The study further reveals that higher intake of total red meat was associated with an increased risk of breast cancer overall. However, higher intakes of poultry, fish, eggs, legumes, and nuts were not related to breast cancer overall. When the association was evaluated by menopausal status, higher intake of poultry was associated with a lower risk of breast cancer in postmenopausal women but not in premenopausal women .The researcher furthers analyzed the study one by one on a daily basis comparison and discovered that legumes for one serving/day of red meat was associated with a 15% lower risk of breast cancer among all women and a 19% lower risk among premenopausal women.


Also, substituting one serving/day of poultry for one serving/day of red meat was associated with a 17% lower risk of breast cancer overall and a 24% lower risk of postmenopausal breast cancer. Furthermore, substituting one serving/day of combined legumes, nuts, poultry, and fish for one serving/day of red meat was associated with a 14% lower risk of breast cancer overall and premenopausal breast cancer.

The study was able to show that:

  • ‘higher consumption of total red

meat during early adulthood was

associated with an increased risk

of breast cancer

  • higher consumption of poultry

during early adulthood was

related to a lower incidence of

breast cancer in postmenopausal

women

  • substituting a combination of

poultry, fish, legumes, and nuts

as protein sources for red meat

during early life seems beneficial

for the prevention of breast

cancer’

This is a clear revelation that ‘ higher red meat intake in early adulthood may be a risk factor for breast cancer, and replacing red meat with a combination of legumes, poultry, nuts and fish may reduce the risk of breast cancer.’


 

Source

BMJ

A work of Maryam S Farvid ‘Dietary protein sources in early adulthood and breast cancer incidence: prospective cohort study’

See also  Promising prospects for invasive breast cancer treatment


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