Can diet be your friend in breast cancer prevention?

As part of Cape Cod Healthcare Breast Cancer Awareness month, Internal Medicine and Public Health Nutrition Specialist Kumara Sidhartha, MD, MPH recently did a live webinar on the “Top 10 Food Strategies to Reduce Breast Cancer Risk.”

“The idea was to make sure people are aware of the latest information related to food and nutrition that is well within their reach in terms of controlling the risk of breast cancer,” he said.

Since only 5 to 10 percent of all breast cancers are directly related to familial genetics, that leaves a large percentage of breast cancers that are influenced by environment, i.e. lifestyle. In that group of people, nutrition can help prevent cancer, according to Dr. Sidhartha.

In a telephone interview after the webinar, Dr. Sidhartha stressed that plant foods in the recommended diet need to be comprised of whole, unprocessed plant foods. French fries are a plant food, but they are hardly healthy. He also wanted people to understand that even though he offered a list of foods he recommends, there are not 10 “superfoods” that people should eat every day.

“It’s more about a meal pattern over the week than it is about one superfood,” he said.

Dr. Sidhartha also clarified that it is safe for women to eat soy. Citing the Shanghai Women’s Health Study and other similar studies, Dr. Sidhartha explained that the phytoestrogens in foods like edamame beans, tofu, soy milk, tempeh and ground flax seeds actually have a protective effect because they bond to beta estrogen receptors in the breast cells rather than alpha receptors.