Yogurt & Cheese May Lower Risk of ER- Breast Cancer
CPS-II Nutrition Study data showed that it's unlikely that eating dairy or foods with calcium increases a woman’s risk for common types of breast cancer.
The Challenge
Dairy products have been thought to influence breast cancer in several, and sometimes opposite, ways.
- Some studies have suggested that certain elements of milk and yogurt, including calcium and vitamin D, have anti-cancer properties.
- Other studies have tested different elements in these foods, including branched chain amino acids, and suggested they may help cancers form and grow.
Some scientists have looked at natural sex hormones in cows and in the hormonal drugs they are given to see if they increase the risk of breast cancer.
Most studies have not looked at specific types of dairy products or at the effect of these foods on specific subtypes of breast cancer, like?hormone-receptor-positive?and hormone-receptor-negative breast cancer.
The Research
The Diet and Cancer Pooling Project (DCPP), is an international consortium of?prospective cohort studies, including the 绿帽社’s (ACS)?Cancer Prevention Study II?(CPS II)?Nutrition Cohort. A group of scientists from around the world, led by You Wu, PhD, in the Department of Nutrition at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston??about their analysis of 21 cohorts, which included over 1 million women. Two members of that group were ACS Senior Scientific Director in Epidemiology Research,?Marjorie McCullough, ScD, RD, and former ACS epidemiologist Mia Gaudet, PhD.
The goal was to learn more about the precise dairy and high-calcium foods that may increase or decrease the risk of developing breast cancer.
We found a ‘modest’ inverse association between ER-negative breast cancer and eating higher amounts of yogurt and cottage/ricotta cheese. That means women who ate more of these foods had a moderately lower risk of developing ER-negative breast cancers, which tend to grow fast and have fewer treatment options. Interestingly, we only saw this cancer protection in studies that did not include women in the US."
