Diet & Lifestyle

World class

Against Breast Cancer's Diet & Lifestyle Study is a multi-centre clinical trial investigating the diet, lifestyle, complementary and alternative treatments breast cancer patients may use.

The Study specifically focuses on the effects of naturally-occurring plant chemicals called phytoestrogens on breast cancer progression because of their oestrogen-mimicking potential. This is one of the largest studies in the world examining this aspect of breast cancer survival and was adopted by the UK National Clinical Research Network in 2005.

The Diet & Lifestyle Study involves more than 3,000 patients across 56 UK hospitals.

Our researchers have begun the process of compiling the information for the publication of preliminary results of the Study which are expected towards the end of 2012 and will be of worldwide interest.

Some of our aims

We aim to investigate how the following affect the secondary spread of breast cancer and long-term survival:

• phytoestrogens -- a compound mimicking the hormone oestrogen that stimulates growth in 75% of breast cancers
• diet, exercise and lifestyle
• dietary patterns
• food supplements
• complementary and alternative therapies
• levels of various dietary chemicals in the blood

What we do

On recruitment, specialist hospital nurses collect blood samples and ask patients to complete four types of questionnaire and update annually over the next four years. Further data is gathered from medical records.

• Lifestyle questionnaire To capture a range of information including: socio-demographic data; medical history; physical activity before and after diagnosis; and use of antibiotics, alcohol, cigarettes, complementary and alternative therapies.
• General health questionnaire A brief quality-of-life questionnaire to assess levels of anxiety and stress.
• Food frequency questionnaire A record of how and what participants eat and drink. It includes 131 key food items from which to calculate average annual intake and identify any nutritional changes over the five years of the study. We also collect information on food preparation and use of dietary supplements.
• 7-day food diary This is used twice during the duration of the study

Cambridge collaboration

The UK version of the 7-day food diary and food frequency questionnaire was designed by the University of Cambridge in collaboration with the MRC Centre for Nutritional Epidemiology in Cancer Prevention and Survival. Nutritional data is produced from the questionnaires by specialist software, and is interpreted by our team in the context of the study.

Preliminary results published by Against Breast Cancer's Diet & Lifestyle Study group have shown that British women make significant changes in diet and supplement use after breast cancer diagnosis.⁽¹⁾

The following are observations made when investigating women's diet before and after they were diagnosed with breast cancer:

Diet

• Increase in fruit and vegetables; a switch to wholegrains; the choice of poultry, fish and seafood over red meat, and extra protein obtained from the bean family, soy meat substitutes and nuts.
• Decrease in high fat foods including full-fat dairy products, chips, crisps and pizza; fewer puddings, fizzy non-diet drinks, less coffee and wine.

Supplements

• Two-thirds of the same group took some form of dietary supplement before diagnosis
• A few women started to take supplements after diagnosis while those already using them increased the number and type.

When the trial is completed, we'll publish all our findings - positive, negative and non-proven - on the link between diet and lifestyle and improved breast cancer survival. In the meantime, the blood samples collected at the start of the study are a crucial resource for our biochemists in detecting biomarkers for cancer spread and vaccine development.

(1)   Lignans and breast cancer risk in pre- and post-menopausal women: meta-analyses of observational studies. Velentzis LS, Cantwell MM, Cardwell C, Keshtgar MR, Leathem AJ, Woodside JV.Br J Cancer. 2009 May 5;100(9):1492-8.