Mediterranean Diet With Olive Oil May Reduce Breast Cancer Risk, Science

Researchers randomly assigned more than 4,200 women, ages 60 to 80, to eat either a Mediterranean diet supplemented with extra virgin olive oil or with nuts, or a low-fat control diet. The others were asked to only reduce the intake of fat in their routine diet.

Breast Cancer has been trending in the oncology wards of late.

We also know also that this high fibre diet will also reduce your risk of diabetes as the sugars in your diet are absorbed more slowly and managed more easily by your body.

Doctors immediately took notice of the 2013 study, which was rigorously designed and allowed them to draw definitive conclusions about the Mediterranean diet and heart disease.

Over time, eating a Mediterranean-style diet that emphasises fish, vegetables and particularly olive oil, may lower women’s risk of breast cancer compared to following a low-fat diet, suggests a study from Spain.

A new study suggests there may be a way for women to dramatically reduce their risk of breast cancer, without cutting calories, losing weight or taking medication.

Of these, a majority of the respondents underwent menopause before 55 years and below 3% used hormone therapy.

“We’re all looking for a magic bullet, like adding extra virgin olive oil to our diets”, said Marji McCullough, a nutritional epidemiologist with the cancer society who wasn’t involved in the new study. The intervention paradigm implemented in the PREDIMED trial provides a useful scenario for breast cancer prevention because it is conducted in primary health care centers and also offers beneficial effects on a wide variety of health outcomes.

Still, the analysis is from a prior trial with relatively few cases of breast cancer (only 35) and needs to be confirmed with longer and larger follow-up studies, noted the study authors.

The study authors note that breast cancer is the most frequently diagnosed malignant tumor and the leading cause of cancer death among women; in addition, its incidence is increasing. The findings were published online on September 15 in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine by researchers in Spain and their colleagues at Harvard Medical School. Substances in the olive oil, Martinez-Gonzalez speculated, may inhibit the growth of the breast cancer cells and kill abnormal cells, among other potential mechanisms. If the risk of this disease can be lowered by simply altering one’s diet, it would represent a safe, non-pharmacological approach to improving the public’s health. The olive oil group was instructed to consume about 50g (4.2 tablespoons) per day, including in cooked foods and on salads or bread.

He further said that extra-virgin olive oil has compounds like polyphenols which have have been proved to have anti-cancer benefits in the laboratory studies.