This so-called "prudent" diet was not linked to a lower risk of death from breast cancer specifically. However, researchers found, breast cancer patients who ate this way were less likely to die from other causes over the eight-year study period.
"Consumption of a diet high in fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and poultry, and low in red meat and refined foods may positively influence a woman's overall health and prevent other cancers and chronic diseases," Dr. Marilyn L. Kwan, a researcher at Kaiser Permanente in Oakland, California, told Reuters Health.
The findings, published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, are based on 1,901 women diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer.
Kwan's team found that women who'd reported a prudent dietary pattern at the outset had a lower overall death rate than those who'd reported a more "Western"-style diet -- one high in red and processed meats, snack foods, high-fat dairy and refined grains like white bread.
Women with the highest intakes of healthier foods were about half as likely to die during the study period as women with the lowest intakes, even with other important factors taken into account -- like the initial size of the breast tumor, the treatment type and patients' smoking habits.
Conversely, women with the most Western eating habits had a 53 percent higher risk of death overall than those with the lowest intakes of those foods.
Neither dietary pattern, however, was related to the odds of breast cancer recurrence or to women's risk of dying from the disease. Still, the link between diet and overall survival means that eating healthy is "very much an important factor for breast cancer survivors," Kwan said.
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