A new study, published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, analyzed the dietary patterns and breast cancer incidence among nearly 92,000 women in the California Teachers Study. The researchers identified five general eating patterns: high fat and protein (meat and fried food); high carb (convenience foods such as pizza, burritos and spaghetti); ethnic (lentils, legumes, soy and rice); plant-based (high in fruits and veggies); and salad and wine (greens, low-fat dressing, fish, and wine). The women were followed for about 14 years, during which time 4,100 were diagnosed with invasive breast cancer. Researchers found that the risk of breast cancer decreased in the plant-eating group, but actually increased by almost 30% in the salad and wine eaters. “It isn’t so surprising that women who ate more fruits and vegetables had a lower risk of developing breast cancer,” says lead researcher Lilli Link, MD, an internist who specializes in nutrition in New York City. “What was more surprising is that women who primarily ate salad and wine were 29% more likely to develop the more common estrogen- and progesterone-receptor positive breast cancer, and 12% more likely to develop any type of breast cancer.” Before you blame it all on the booze, Dr. Link and colleagues analyzed its effects and founds that the elevated risk remained largely unchanged regardless of alcohol consumption. “We know there are other factors at play because the alcohol does not explain it all,” she says. So, what gives—aren’t salads with low-fat dressing, fish, and wine pretty healthy in general? Yes and no, says Prevention advisor David Katz, MD, director of Yale University’s Prevention Research Center and author of Disease-Proof. “The salad and wine diet sounds like what people eat when they are trying to watch their calories but don’t know how to eat healthily,” he explains. “If you’re eating low-fat salad dressing, you’re probably eating a lot of other processed low-calorie foods like 100-calorie snack packs and diet soda, none of which is healthy.” The best way to beat cancer and other lifestyle diseases is to adopt an overall healthy lifestyle: eating a varied plant-based diet of minimally processed foods, getting plenty of sleep and exercise, and reducing stress. “Can people reduce their cancer risk with lifestyle? Absolutely,” says Dr. Katz. “But the only way to be healthy is to have an overall healthy lifestyle. A bowl of iceberg lettuce is not going to offset a diet of processed food or other unhealthy habits.” More from Prevention: 10 Ways To Stop Breast Cancer
