Is there a breast cancer prevention diet?

Wondering what you can do to reduce your risk of breast cancer? While there’s no single breast cancer prevention diet, what you eat (and don’t eat) can lower your risk.

According to the American Cancer Society, more than 4,000 Louisiana women will be diagnosed with breast cancer this year. While the condition is common, it’s treatable when discovered early—and you can take steps to reduce your risk of developing breast cancer in the first place.

There’s no quick fix when it comes to breast cancer prevention, but making changes to your lifestyle, including how you eat, can help.

The basics of breast cancer prevention

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention defines “being a woman” and “getting older” as the two most significant risk factors for developing breast cancer. You can’t do anything to change those risk factors, but as is true with many aspects of your health, changing your lifestyle habits can lower your overall risk.

Making healthy lifestyle choices can help lower your risk of all types of cancer, including breast cancer. What does that mean on a practical level? There are five basic steps you can take:

• Don’t smoke or use other forms of tobacco.
• Eat a healthy diet.
• If you drink alcohol, moderate your consumption by sticking with one drink per day. (Men should have a maximum of two drinks.)
• Lose weight if you need to and aim to stay at a weight that’s healthy for you.
• Make exercise a regular part of your routine, getting in 150 minutes of moderate physical activity each week.

Healthy eating habits can help you lower your risk of developing breast cancer. Read on to learn the basics of a breast cancer prevention diet.

How to eat to lower your risk

What you eat plays a big role in your health, and it can lower your breast cancer risk.

What’s the connection between nutrition and breast cancer? Research has uncovered a few ways that food can reduce breast cancer risk:

A plant-based diet emphasizing cruciferous vegetables, fruit, whole grains, beans and lentils can lower risk. This type of diet limits the consumption of animal products and refined carbohydrates, such as white pasta and baked goods.

The Mediterranean diet also reduces breast cancer risk. This diet is largely plant-based and focuses on fatty fish, such as tuna or salmon, along with healthy fats, such as olive oil.

Non-starchy vegetables and carotenoid-rich veggies may lower the risk of estrogen receptor-negative breast cancer. Non-starchy veggies include cauliflower, asparagus, cucumbers, onions, carrots, broccoli, greens and peppers. Spinach, corn, orange bell peppers, broccoli and carrots are good sources of carotenoids, including beta-carotene.

A low-fat diet may help lower the risk of breast cancer in women who were previously eating a high-fat diet. More research is needed to confirm this link, but eating less fat overall and choosing healthy fats is a good practice regardless. A diet with limited fat may also help women with breast cancer avoid recurrence.

Diets high in calcium and calcium-rich dairy may reduce risk. Choose low-fat or non-fat options, including cheese, yogurt and milk, to reap the benefits without added fat.

One other note about diet and breast cancer risk: You may have heard that you should avoid soy products to help prevent breast cancer. You can leave that misconception behind! Soy can act like estrogen in the body, which stimulates specific cancer cells, and animal research studies showed that soy consumption increases breast cancer risk.

Human studies, though, do not show that same connection. Eating soy may help reduce breast cancer risk. Soy products, including soy milk, miso, tofu and edamame, can be excellent protein sources. So, eat up!

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