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July 10, 2007

'Meat-sweet' diet linked to breast cancer






These women were younger, better educated and had later menopausal age and were less likely to have had their first live birth before age 25. Their diet was also strongly correlated with intake of saturated fats and red meat.

Women who had higher consumption of the “vegetable-soy” pattern were more likely to be physically active. Their diet was also strongly correlated with intake of fiber, vitamins C and E soy protein, legumes and vegetables.

But while it's the first study to link diet to breast cancer in Asian women, it’s not the first time red meat has been linked to a higher risk of breast cancer.

Last year a study in the Archives of Internal Medicine showed eating more red meat may be associated with a higher risk for hormone receptor–positive breast cancers in pre-menopausal women. Other work has linked a western diet (consumption of red and processed meats) to a higher risk of colon cancer and Type 2 diabetes in women.

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(Chicago Tribune file photo)


One thing struck me in the article:
quote "...significantly associated with increased risk of breast cancer among overweight, postmenopausal women"

Overweight. Everything in moderation.

I had also read about 10 years ago that women that eat chicken are 400 times more likely to get breast cancer than those who done.

Vegetarian is the way to go and limit the dairy if so.

Could the study have been any more narrow? Postmenopausal Chinese women? Also, it's stupid to link everything (meats, sweets, non-exercise, overweight, late menopausal age, later child birth) BUT vegetables in one lump sum category and say it'll kill you.

OK, I am confused.

The front page lead to this piece says, "The researchers identified two main eating patterns among 1,602 study participants who had breast cancer: western or 'meat-sweet' and 'vegetable soy.'”

This seems to imply that a vegetable / soy diet also carries an increased risk for breast cancer. And nowhere in the article did you overtly state that the soy / veg diet was a better alternative or carried less of a risk; nor do you report the actual numbers of how many participants in the study had a meat-based diet versus a soy-based diet.

I may be a little daft today, but please tell me that a woman trying to avoid breast cancer does not have to eliminate meat, sugar, bread, milk, soy, beans, and vegetables!

It's no secret that a meat and dairy based diet leads to higher instances of cancer...

I concur with Sidney.. the article made no sense. Nowhere did it state what the conclusion was re soy, etc. It did not state whether it was linked or not, good or bad....very poor reporting...please clarify....


So I wasn't the only one! My mother had breast cancer and my wife's family has a history of it, so I was naturally interested in your post.

I, along with Sidney and Shirley, was ALSO very confused about your mention of meat-sweet and vegetables-soy. It seems like you were saying that both were linked with breast cancer....is that right?

This was a confusing post! Unless I've just misread or misunderstood...

A diet rich in saturated fats, ie red meats and dairy foods along with the over consumption of carbs through processed sugars will lead to any number of health issues. The connection of a western type diet to breast cancer is nothing new as you stated in your article. However, what I did find interesting is the association of a vegetable "soy" diet, which is made up of all the foods that we have been told are good for you, is a cause for increased risk in breast cancer. This side of the story seemed to be passed over. I think this topic should be elaborated on because many of your readers subscribe to a diet that is vegetable centered and this new discovery may be important to them.

Are you guys dense? Read the article again.
The study concludes that the "meat-sweet" eaters had a higher chance of breast cancer than the "vegetable-soy" eaters. The participants were not both meat eaters and vegetable eaters, they were one or the other. And the meat eaters got the cancer more.

I think the "study" pitted two types of diets against each other - "Meat/Sweet" and "veggie/soy."

BUT - I agree the study is very narrow, not to mention only done on Chinese women. China - you know, the country America is trying to avoid ANY food product from. Could it be these women are a product of their country's lax health and environmental standards?

Here's the problem. Many vegetarians & vegans equate 'meat-eating' with excess. I eat lean white meat or fish with 1 meal a day, some eggs and little dairy. I splurge on a steak about once or twice a month. I also eat a lot of veggies, legumes and some soy. Guess what? I am active and in great health. My bloodwork is ideal and I feel great. I am not some beef-gobbling, cake after every meal, sedentary caraciture. There is a difference, just like there's a difference between a vegetarian/vegan who eats healthily & one that has anorexia or can't get an adequate amount of vitamins & minerals because they don't know how to eat right.

We can all point to a study to prove our points, but think about the study. They can't possibly have a control group, because none exists. Maybe the sedentary lifestyle is the problem? Maybe these women live in a polluted city & that is the culprit? Or maybe these women have a problem with excess in their poor diet? You never know when there are a dozen similar lifestyle factors that lump someone into a group.

It's not just the meat. If it was, nearly EVERYONE would be riddled with cancer.

To clarify: below is the actual abstract of the journal article that this blurb is based upon, which clarifies that it is the western diet that is associated with increased risk of breast cancer:

"The association of breast cancer with dietary patterns such as a western diet has not been studied in Asian women. We examined this among Shanghai Breast Cancer Study participants. Cases were of ages 25 to 64 years, diagnosed 08/1996-03/1998, and identified through a rapid case ascertainment system supplemented by the Shanghai Cancer Registry. Controls, selected from the general population of urban Shanghai, were frequency matched to cases by 5-year age group. Participants provided information on diet, lifestyle, and reproductive factors. In principal component analysis among 1,556 controls, two patterns emerged: a "vegetable-soy" pattern (tofu, cauliflower, beans, bean sprouts, green leafy vegetables) and a "meat-sweet" pattern (shrimp, chicken, beef, pork, candy, desserts). In adjusted unconditional logistic regression analyses including 1,446 cases and 1,549 controls with complete covariate data, risk was not associated with the vegetable-soy pattern. It was associated with the meat-sweet pattern (4th versus 1st quartile: odds ratio, 1.3; 95% confidence interval, 1.0-1.7; Ptrend = 0.03), but only in postmenopausal women, specifically among those with estrogen receptor-positive tumors (4th versus 1st quartile: odds ratio, 1.9; 95% confidence interval, 1.1-3.3; Ptrend = 0.03). Our findings indicate that a western diet increases breast cancer risk in postmenopausal Chinese women. They also suggest the value of quantifying aggregate risk for common combinations of foods. (Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2007;16(7):1443-8)"

This is a really stupid article.
it is a FACT that the key to health is moderation. there is no good or bad food!

Not buying it?

Dr. McDougall (do a google search) did the same study when he worked in HI and noticed how the Japanese didn't get our disease yet when they moved here they did?? And it all has to do with diets. Hospitals threatened to fire him because if you teach people what is killing them you lose $$ in a for profit medical environment.

Read a book. He's probably been proving this for 20 years or more.

You can also reverse heart disease and cure cancer with a vegan diet. Not tough to do. People like to eat meat and be lazy and fat though.

Taxpayers pay for the extra "fat" fuel and their medical costs so they don't care. They hate to hear their diet is wrong.

It's very sad.

Plenty of skinny meat eaters also get heart disease and cancer. Vegetarians, particularly vegans, rarely get it.

Also, please note that in Japan, they smoke more than ANY industrialized nation and have less lung cancer than we do because of their veggie/soy diets.

Read A BOOK. It't not that hard.

It is simple: toxins are stored in animal fat--the more animal fat one eats, the more toxins one ingests. Eating a lot of animal fat 1) means you're injesting a lot of toxins 2) will make you fat (thus giving you more "storage room" for the toxins you're injesting)

I was confused by this article too. The BBC led off with a much more clear intro: "A study of 1,500 Chinese women showed those who ate a "meat-sweet" diet were twice as likely to develop the disease as those on a vegetable-based diet."

Nick- People read books all the time. Here is a shocker for you: not everything you read in a book is accurate.

Veganism, while it can be healthy, does not cure cancer. If id did, no one would need chemo. Maybe you should just tell the oncologists of the world to start prescribing carrots. Lung cancer has ABSOLUTELY nothing to do with someone's diet. It has to do with the carcinogens someone breathes.

You go read a book - one that isn't narrow-minded and ridiculous - and come to your OWN conclusion.

I have read the article and am advising everyone to avoid those foods most harmful:
"bread and milk and “vegetable soy” - tofu, cauliflower, beans, bean sprouts, green leafy vegetables"

Especially the cancer causing "GREEN LEAFY VEGETABLES". They are very deadly.

The best diet is eating food in it's most natural state. Plenty of vegetables (a quarter to a third should be raw) and (lower sugar) fruits. Meats (yes meats) should include fish and white meats with somewhat lesser amounts of red meats.

We are, after all carnivores, we were designed that way and evolution has not changed it. Those who are vegetarians on moral grounds, God bless. Those of you who chose it on nutritional grounds, please do the research and check it out.

It is fact that we cannot get all the vitamins, minerals, amino acids, enzymes and other trace compounds from plants alone. Besides diets don't work. Eat sensibly and exercise.

Since we're on the topic: the american cancer society has finally admitted that breast cancer is NOT genetic in 9 of 10 cases. "Only one in ten women who develop breast cancer do so because they inherited a defective gene from their parents. That means that 9 out of 10 women who get the disease were born with healthy genes. And yet something happened to those genes in the course of a lifetime to give them breast cancer." I'm quoting Dr. Devra Lee Davis it Professor of Epidemiology at the University of Pittsburgh's Graduate School of Public Health.

Ananymous, poster who doesn't believe food can heal: Food affects health, healthy bodies are more disease resistant--I think we can all agree on that.

Phil, the meat/dairy eater vs. vegan debate was last week. But I will reiterate for you, the only vitamin or mineral vegans can’t get from plants is B12--which comes from organisms in soil--because our food is washed so well, we can't get the B12 anymore.

Please do your research before posting about diets you're obviously not familiar with.

This article, and all the ones like it that suggest "links" between X and cancer are just inciting fear. A healthy, well-balanced diet and exercise will likely not increase one's cancer risk. The article doesn't say by what rate the risk increased; I would be surprised if it was even 1%. I lost my mother and grandmother to cancer (two different kinds), and I'm pretty sure that I have an increased risk because of my genes. However, I can't stay out of the sun, stop breathing, or live on vegetables because of my allergies and doctor's orders to avoid soy (due to the plant estrogens; those are also bad for some women, but that rarely gets mentioned), so I will eat a steak every now and then, and if I'm going to come down with cancer in 20 years, at least I enjoyed good foods while I could.

Definately a poorly written article - the study abstract is shorter & clearer, just click on "a study" to read it.

And while vegetarians may be thinner, they're not neccesarily healthier, they're almost all humorless & none can resist the urge to talk about vegetables. I'll take regular folks, thank you, over those who worship veggies.

Your post was poorly written but I put it up anyway. It's spelled "definitely."

And most vegetarians don't talk about vegetables, just like meat eaters aren't always discussing pigs and cows.

eram - I believe your diet has a lot to do with your health. I believe that the healthier you are, the better your immune system works and the better prepared you are for avoiding or fighting cancers. However I do not believe that once someone gets cancer, merely switching to a vegan diet will save them. If that were true, my mother would be alive today, my sister would have all her hair and my niece wouldn't need to get her first mammogram at 20 years old. I guess they are the unlucky 1 out of ten (A staggering figure if you are to believe that). They are all vegetarians, BTW - I am not. Oh and my name is Denise - I'm not hiding my identity or anything.

No such thing as good or bad food? Are you crazy?! So, just because someone says it's food, it must be OK, right? WOW.

Have you actually looked at what's IN your food, at the amount of chemicals, preservatives, etc.? How about all the hormones you ingest? Did you ever consider that your body is absorbing all that man-made junk and we're not designed to process it?

Please, people. Experiment. Look at all the ingredients in your food and your hygiene products, list every chemical you've never heard of and look it up. You'd be surprised.

I'm having a hard time buying it either. It seems to me that no matter what these women ate they still got cancer. The ones who had been eating meat were also overweight. I don't know if I believe it is purely down to the food they ate, I tend to think that the food choices are simply an indication of the lifestyle they chose to lead. I'm pretty sure that Chinese women taking up a Western style diet are probably also drinking, smoking, driving cars more, doing less manual labour around the house than those Chinese women who were still living the more traditional Chinese female lifestyle. I also know that in a lot of China a Western diet means junk food from international chains, rather than the homecooked nutritional meals some of us eat.

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