Low-Fat Diet Helps Prevent Breast Cancer Recurrence

A low-fat diet rich in fruit and vegetables and therefore in fiber, along with a sufficiency of the right kind of protein, carbohydrate, vitamins and minerals (preferably from natural sources), combined with daily exercise may be both preventive of illness and effective in warding off a recurrrence of past illness, as this study suggests. A recommendation confirmed by medical experts in a variety of fields deserves our attention.

Two big news items this week. One, the results of a study in which post surgical patients with estrogen receptor negative breast cancer were randomized to a diet, in which one arm of the study reduced their percent calories as fat to 20% or less. These women had a 2/3 drop in mortality, which vastly exceeds that produced by any other therapeutic modality.

The other big news is a lesser drop in mortality in Her2/neu positive patients randomized to Herceptin. This is being puffed up as the breast cancer breakthrough of the century, but it's much less important than the diet study.

Herceptin will make billions for various people.

Reducing fat in the diet would save cancer patients money, cost the "sytem" nothing at all, and make no money for anyone.

Now, for $64,000...the envelope, please.

Which study will have the greatest impact on the medical practices of medical oncologists?