Good news out this month for breast cancer survivors. A diet “enriched” with olive oil may help breast cancer survivors lose more weight than a traditional low-fat diet, according to researchers in Rhode Island.
Why is that important? Excess weight at the time a woman is diagnosed with breast cancer, or even moderate weight gain during treatment, has been linked to a greater risk of cancer reoccurring, health experts at the Miriam Hospital in Providence said in a news release last week. The risk of cancer coming back is even greater in post-menopausal women.
Mary Flynn, a research dietitian at the Miriam Hospital and the study’s lead author, said many breast cancer patients don’t realize there’s a link between weight and cancer recurrence.
“That’s why it was important for us to compare these two diets and determine which one the women not only enjoyed following, but also produced the best weight loss, because that’s the diet they’re more likely to stick with,” Flynn said in a statement.
“In this case, it was a diet enriched with extra virgin olive oil, which is a source of healthy fats, and includes foods associated with improving one’s health, such as vegetables, beans and other plant products.”
In the pilot study, women followed two 1,500-calorie diets: a conventional low-fat diet recommended by the National Cancer Institute (NCI), and a plant-based olive oil diet similar to the Mediterranean diet. After eight weeks on each diet, participants selected one diet to follow for an additional six months of continued weight loss or weight management.
The findings, published in the June issue of the Journal of Women’s Health, showed that 80% of women who started with the plant-based olive oil diet lost more than 5% of their baseline weight, versus 31% percent who started with the NCI diet.
But, according to the news release, researchers were “most surprised” to discover that after trying both diets, most women “chose to stick with the less conventional, higher fat olive oil diet, saying they found the food more appetizing, accessible and affordable.”
The study looked at 44 overweight women diagnosed with invasive breast cancer after age 50 and who were within four years after completing treatment.
Flynn, who’s also an assistant professor of medicine at Brown University’s Alpert Medical School, developed the olive oil diet used in the study. It included at least three tablespoons of olive oil per day.
Claude S. Weiller
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