BREAST CANCER AND FOOD



The Relationship between Breast cancer and Food

Table of Contents

Introduction3

Breast cancer5

Risk Factors6

Obesity, Circulating Hormones, and Postmenopausal Breast cancer7

Adipocyte as Endocrine Tumor8

Diet and Breast Cancer16

Asian Diet16

Mediterranean Diet17

Macrobiotic and Vegetarian Diets18

Fruits and Vegetables20

Red Meat22

Alcohol23

Nutrients24

Physical Activity and Weight26

Physical Activity26

Weight28

Conclusion30

References32

The Relationship between Breast cancer and Food

Introduction

One in eight American women is being daily diagnosed with breast cancer during her lifetime, and in 2001, more than 40,000 women died of the disease (men are also occasionally diagnosed with breast cancer, and make up about 1 percent of all cases). Most physicians and Breast Cancer advice books urge breast cancer patients to think of the disease as a chronic, rather than a terminal, condition. For this reason, one can understand breast Breast Cancer in many of the same ways one understands disability—as a state of physical difference that may require some accommodations in order to function in particular physical environments.

The connections between breast cancer and disability go deeper, however, especially when one considers some important moments in the history of Breast Cancer activism and disability rights in the United States: the public acknowledgment of breast cancer as something that is not shameful, the emergence of organizations of patients dedicated to activism on behalf of other patients, the appearance of art and literature specifically dealing with the disease, and the specific link made between breast cancer and the Americans with Disability Act in Alabama v. Garrett in 2001.

Carcinoma of the breast is the most common nonskin malignancy in women, exceeded only by lung Breast Cancer as the greatest cause of Breast Cancer deaths in women. The major known risk factors are hormonal and genetic (family history). Chronological age is the strongest predictor of nongenetic risk; a woman who lives to age 90 has a one in eight chance of developing the disease.

Hormonally based risk factors include age of menarche, age of first live birth, and first-degree relatives with breast cancer. Of breast cancer with a genetic basis, about 25 percent can be attributed to two autosomal-dominant genes, BRCA1 and BRCA 2; however, inherited mutations at these loci account for only about 3 percent of all breast cancers. Thus, sporadic breast cancer is by far more common than familial, and risk increases with exposure to excess estrogen stimulation, especially in cells that express the estrogen receptor (ER).

Worldwide data on the following cancers are based on the most recent information available from GLOBOCAN 2002. Current trends may differ from these 2002 estimates by varying degrees depending on changes in risk or prevention strategies (incidence) and improvements in Breast Cancer detection or treatment (mortality). Incidence and mortality statistics of the United States are also based on 2002 estimates to allow for comparability with the worldwide data from GLOBOCAN 2002. More recent estimates for the United States are available at the ACS Web site. Survival estimates for the United States are based on data from the ACS Breast Cancer Facts & Figures 2006 report.

Breast cancer

Worldwide, 1.15 million females were estimated to be newly diagnosed in 2002 with ...