LONDON—An English systematic review and meta-analysis indicated there is a link between some dietary patterns and breast cancer risk (AmJ Clin Nutr. 2010;91(5):1294-1302). MEDLINE and EMBASE were searched for relevant articles that identified common dietary patterns published up to November 2009. Multivariable-adjusted odds ratios (ORs) comparing highest and lowest categories of dietary pattern scores and multivariable-adjusted ORs for a 20th-percentile increase in dietary pattern scores were combined by using random-effects meta-analyses.
Case-control and cohort studies were retrieved that identified prudent/healthy (n=18), Western/unhealthy (n=17) and drinker (n=4) dietary patterns. There was evidence of a decrease in the risk of breast cancer in the highest compared with the lowest categories of prudent/healthy dietary patterns in all studies and in pooled cohort studies alone. An increase in the risk of breast cancer was shown for the highest compared with the lowest categories of a drinker dietary pattern. There was no evidence of a difference in the risk of breast cancer between the highest and the lowest categories of Western/unhealthy dietary patterns.
