Update on breast Ca prevention from lifestyle changes: a 30%-40% reduction is possible.(Gynecology)

SAN ANTONIO -- American women aren't going to be able to lower their breast cancer risk to the extent they'd like solely through dietary changes and other lifestyle measures, according to Dr. Walter C. Willett.

"It's pretty clear that we're not going to get a 90% reduction in breast cancer through any feasible modifications of diet and lifestyle alone. We haven't been nearly as successful as we'd like to be. We're going to need other means, probably pharmacologic means," he said in his Brinker Award lecture for scientific distinction in clinical research, presented by the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation.

Nevertheless, if American women were to adopt the lifestyle changes for which there is now good evidence of preventive benefit, it looks like the incidence of breast cancer could be reduced by 30%40%, added Dr. Willett, professor of medicine, epidemiology, and nutrition at Harvard Medical School, Boston, and director of the second Nurses' Health Study (NHS-II).

The lifestyle modifications that are of benefit are maintenance of high school body weight throughout adulthood--something almost unheard of here but the norm in Japan and other countries with low rates of breast cancer--along with avoidance of prolonged hormone therapy and either refraining from daily alcohol consumption or adding a folate-containing multivitamin, he said at a breast cancer symposium sponsored by the Cancer Therapy and Research Center, where the Brinker Award was presented.

Dr. Willett provided a progress report on the status of a variety of lifestyle factors that have ...