Vegan diet is the latest fad these days, especially in the West. Though not exactly vegan, a pro-vegetarian diet includes ample amount of vegetables, fruits, and whole grains. A recent study conducted among 10,812 Mediterranean women has led researchers to believe that a pro-vegetarian diet (includes both plants and some animal foods) can actually reduce the risk of breast cancer in women.
The pro-vegetarian dietary patterns (PVGs) of these women were assessed based on a semi-validated food-frequency questionnaire. It allocated positive quintiles-based score for plant foods while it was the reverse for animal foods. Each participant was categorized as having either a healthful PVG (hPVG) or unhealthful PVG (uPVG) after calculating the tertiles of the complete scores.
An average of 11.5 years was taken into consideration for this study. This duration of follow-up revealed 101 cases of breast cancer. A modest overall PVG was found to be inversely proportional to breast cancer incidence and absent in the separate values of healthful PVG and unhealthful PVG. Even cases having high tertile was found to be unrelated with breast cancer.
This study proved that following even a balanced pro-vegetarian dietary pattern might lower the risk of breast cancer in women.
Source: Pro-vegetarian diet can reduce breast cancer risk. Sciencedirect. Accessed on 18-07-2022.
Link: Healthful and unhealthful provegetarian food patterns and the incidence of breast cancer: Results from a Mediterranean cohort – ScienceDirect.
Know the cancer – Breast cancer treatment
Previous : Vaccinated Cancer Patients are at Greater Risk of Breakthrough COVID-19 Infection