Fish Oil Reduces Breast Cancer Risk by 1/3
Women who regularly take fish oil supplements may be up to 1/3 less likely to develop breast cancer, a new study suggests. These findings, reported in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, add to the growing body of evidence showing that the omega-3 fatty acids found in fish oil play a significant role in preventing chronic disease.
Researchers at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle analyzed data from a survey of 35,016 postmenopausal women (ages 50 to 76) with no history of breast cancer. The women filled out questionnaires regarding their diet, intake of nutritional supplements, exercise habits and overall health.
Six years later, 880 of these women had developed breast cancer. The researchers were able to link regular use of fish oil supplements to a 32% reduction in risk for invasive ductal breast cancer, the most common type of breast cancer. They accounted for factors that might have influenced cancer risk, such as age, weight, fruit and vegetable intake, smoking status and age at which they first gave birth. (Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev. 2010 Jul;19(7):1696-708.)
These findings mirror the results of another recent study, which showed that women who had the highest blood levels of the omega-3, EPA, had less than half the risk of having fibrocystic breasts, and were about half as likely to develop breast cancer.
This study was observational in nature, which means that it wasn’t designed to show a cause-and-effect relationship between fish oil consumption and reduced risk for breast cancer. However, it sets the stage for a large upcoming clinical trial at Harvard Medical School that may confirm the results. Harvard researchers are just beginning a five-year randomized trial of 20,000 people which will examine the effects of fish oil and vitamin D on risk for chronic diseases such as cancer and heart disease.
“It seems to me that this is not a fluke or a false positive finding, as least with respect to the methods — it’s pretty solid work,” says Timothy Rebbeck, an epidemiologist at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. “Short of a randomized trial, this is as about as well as you can do. This is really something that has to be followed up.”
How fish oil might prevent cancer remains unknown, but inflammation, which has been linked to cancer in many studies, may play a central role. Fish oil’s omega-3 fatty acids have been shown to inhibit inflammation.
The Anti-Aging Bottom Line: Breast cancer affects 1 in 8 women. But more and more, research is showing that a woman may be able to reduce her risk for breast cancer by attending to modifiable lifestyle factors like nutritional status and activity level.
Sources:
http://www.webmd.com/breast-cancer/news/20100708/fish-oil-linked-to-lower-breast-cancer-risk
http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/724938
