From breastcancer.org. No food or diet can prevent you from getting breast cancer. But some foods can make your body the healthiest it can be, boost your immune system, and help keep your risk for breast cancer as low as possible. And no food or diet can cure cancer, though some of them may help control treatment side effects or help your body get well after treatment. Some food choices may help cancer treatment work more effectively or may help keep you healthy. Others can be dangerous and can interfere with treatment and recovery.

Healthy weight reduces risk of first-time breast cancer and recurrence.

Maintaining a healthy weight may help reduce the risk of breast cancer coming back. Studies have shown that women who gained weight after their breast cancer diagnosis had an increased risk of recurrence.

Studies on maintaining a healthy weight and lowering the risk of a first-time breast cancer suggest that overweight women have an increased risk of breast cancer after menopause compared to women at a healthy weight.

If you’re not sure what your healthy weight should be, use some of the tips and tools available on the Assess Your Weight page. A healthy eating plan should include some physical activity. Aim for 3 to 4 hours of walking per week to start. If you’re having treatment right now, you may need to start slowly and work up to this.

Low-fat diet may reduce risk of recurrence and first-time breast cancer.

Sticking to a low-fat diet may help reduce the risk of breast cancer coming back. One study in which women got only about 25% of their daily calories from fat found a lower risk of recurrence, mostly in women who’d been diagnosed with estrogen-receptor-negative breast cancer. It will take more than this one study to know who is most likely to get the biggest benefit from specific dietary changes. But no matter what kind of cancer you’ve had, you might get significant benefit from lowering the amount of fat in your diet. Plus, other healthy choices are more likely to come with a low-fat diet, such as eating more fruits and vegetables and losing weight. All these changes together may help lower your risk of recurrence.

The large Women’s Health Initiative Trial compared the breast cancer risk of postmenopausal women who ate a low-fat diet to those who continued to eat their regular diet. The researchers didn’t find any significant differences in breast cancer risk between the two groups. But the study did suggest that a low-fat diet may reduce the risk of first-time breast cancer for women whose diets are very high in fat to begin with. More research is needed to determine if this relationship becomes stronger over time. And reducing fat and increasing fruits, vegetables, and whole grains in your diet will ensure your body is getting enough nutrients and contribute to your overall health. Also, a low-fat diet will probably help you lose weight, if you are trying to do that.

Follow this link for more information, www.breastcancer.org/tips/nutrition/reduce_risk/reduce_risk.