Ligans and cancer risk in hormone + women

saluki

So---What do we women on AI's do with this?
I am so torn.
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Plant foods may cut breast cancer risk
Wed Mar 21, 2007 4:43 PM ET

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Postmenopausal women who eat healthy amounts of plant foods rich in estrogen-like compounds called lignans may reduce their risk of developing breast cancer, according to a new study.

"Following the general dietary guidelines for a healthy and prudent diet, that is, consuming large amounts and varieties of fruits, vegetables and whole-grain cereal products daily (all foods rich in lignans) may also help prevent breast cancer in postmenopausal women," Dr. Francoise Clavel-Chapelon told Reuters Health.

Clavel-Chapelon, from the National Institute of Health and Medical Research, Villejuif, France, and associates evaluated the relationship between the amount of four types of plant ligands in the diet and breast cancer risk in 58,049 postmenopausal French women.

Over an average follow-up period of 7.7 years, 1469 women were diagnosed with breast cancer, according to the study, published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

Analysis of the data showed that women with the highest total amount of lignans in the diet had a 17-percent lower risk of developing breast cancer compared with women having the lowest dietary lignan levels.

"The reduction in risk was confined to breast cancers positive for hormone receptors, the major type, of which incidence is increasing," Clavel-Chapelon noted.

A diet containing lots of plant foods is hypothesized to offer a breast cancer prevention strategy, the researcher added. This hypothesis was recently confirmed by a study that found a reduced risk of invasive breast cancer among postmenopausal women with high lignan levels in their diet, Clavel-Chapelon said.

SOURCE: Journal of the National Cancer Institute, March 21, 2007.

© Reuters 2007. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content, including by caching, framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters and the Reuters sphere logo are registered trademarks and trademarks of the Reuters group of companies around the world.
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mkl48

The women in the study did not have breast cancer. Women who have been treated may still have sub-clincical,non-scanable disease. Some may never go beyond this.Will estrogen rich foods have a protective effect or will they undo the purpose of the AIs.Or women who had BC may no longer have residual cells so the ligans may protect them if the thesis is correct.NED means no evidence. For some it means really NO DIsease But no Onc knows which situation is true.

saluki

How did they establish that the reduction in risk was only applicable to hormonally positive

"The reduction in risk was confined to breast cancers positive for hormone receptors, the major type, of which incidence is increasing," Clavel-Chapelon noted.

I'm confused--If they didn't have samples of tumors how would they know who was positive?

I also have concerns about taking this stuff with AI's.

Wish we knew more.

Rosemary44

We would need to read the actual study. Sometimes these reporters leave a tad too much out of the story. It's hard for me to believe that flax wasn't also protective against getting ER- cancers also to some degree.

Here's the abstract of the study:

http://jnci.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/conte...ourcetype=HWCIT

Rosemary44

They only used postmenapausal women as subjects. And at the bottom of the report it mentions that it was protective against invasive BC. This is all about prevention.

I've read other reports that lignans were protective against ER- tumors for premenapausal women. At least they did this study, but as to us who are on AI's, there isn't a study yet using humans taking an AI and eating flax or other plant lignans.

saluki

Thanks for the link to the abstract. It doesn't sound like a well designed study.