KEY POINTS:
Women with breast cancer can halve their risk of dying from the disease if they eat fruit and take up walking, research released yesterday has shown.
Even those who are overweight or obese gain the same benefit from the strategy - provided they follow both parts of it. Eating fruit (and vegetables) without walking or walking without eating fruit has no effect, researchers said.
The study of 1500 women diagnosed with early stage breast cancer between 1991 and 2000 is the first to examine the combination of exercise and diet and its effect on survival. Previous studies have looked at one or the other and come up with mixed results.
Researchers at the Moore's Cancer Centre, University of California, who conducted the study, published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, say getting diet and exercise right is the key for breast cancer patients.
"We demonstrate in this study of breast cancer survivors that even if a woman is overweight, if she eats at least five servings of vegetables and fruits a day and walks briskly for 30 minutes, six days a week, her risk of death goes down by 50 per cent. The key is that you must do both," said director John Pierce.
The researchers found that just one in six women who were obese were both physically active and had a healthy diet, compared to almost one in three of the rest of the women in the study. The death rate during the five to 11 years for which the women were followed up was 7 per cent among those who led a healthy lifestyle, half that of those who did not.
Cheryl Rock, co-author of the study, said: "This halving of risk was seen in people who were obese as well as in those who were not obese.
"This is of particular importance. Also the effect was not seen in women who practised only one of the lifestyle patterns - high vegetable and fruit intake or physical activity."
The researchers plan to conduct a further study in which they will attempt to intervene to change the diet and level of activity of breast cancer survivors to see if the findings from this first "observational" study are borne out.
- INDEPENDENT
