Chewing the fat

Researchers are still analyzing the fat in our lives--whether worn about the waist or taken in as hollandaise sauce--as a risk factor for breast cancer. They examined food frequency diaries from nearly 200,000 women in the National Institutes of Health-AARP Diet and Health Study abd correlated dieatary fat with incidence of breast cancer over 4+ years.

Study co-author Anne C. M. Thiébaut, Ph.D., of the National Cancer Institute noted that doubling fat intake from 20% to 40% increased breast cancer risk by 15%. Drs. Meir Stampfer and Stephanie Smith-Warner both felt that the elevated risk from dietary fat was way overshadowed by the influence of body fat on cancer risk. They wrote:

Thus, from a prevention perspective, interventions to control the amount of body fat (e.g., promotion of exercise and caloric restraint) are likely to have a greater impact on breast cancer incidence than a reduction in fat intake.