Fat-Reduced Diet May Not Reduce Risk for Cancer or CVD

Fat-Reduced Diet May Not Reduce Risk : "Feb. 7, 2006 - At 8 years of follow-up, a fat-reduced diet was not associated with reduced risk for breast or colon cancer, heart disease, stroke, or cardiovascular disease (CVD), according to the results of the randomized Women's Health Initiative (WHI) dietary modification trial reported in 3 articles published in the February 8 issue of JAMA. Two accompanying editorials note the limitations of this trial, particularly that the diet studied is not consistent with current guidelines for a heart-healthy diet.
'The hypothesis that a low-fat dietary pattern can reduce breast cancer risk has existed for decades but has never been tested in a controlled intervention trial,' write Ross L. Prentice, PhD, from the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Institute in Seattle, Washington, and colleagues. 'Supported by early rodent experiments, country-to-country comparisons linked higher dietary fat intake to breast cancer risk. However, case-control and cohort studies have had mixed results.'

The WHI dietary modification trial took place at 40 US clinical centers from 1993 to 2005 and enrolled 48,835 postmenopausal women, aged 50 to 79 years, without previous history of breast cancer. Of these participants, 18.6% were of minority race or ethnicity. Women were randomized to the dietary modification intervention group (40%; n = 19,541) or to the comparison group (60%; n = 29,294).

The diet was designed to reduce intake of total fat to 20% of energy and to increase consumption of vegetables and fruit to at least 5 servings daily and grains to at least 6 servings daily. Women in the comparison group were not asked to make dietary changes. The primary endpoint was incidence of invasive breast cancer."

In my mind, the most shocking part of this article is actually the bolded portion.