Journal of Clinical Nutrition & Dietetics

A Systematic Review of the Association between Dietary Patterns and Breast Cancer Risk

Background: Dietary patterns, which represent the amounts, proportions, variety or combinations of different foods and drinks in the diets, and the frequency with which they are regularly consumed, have been linked to the risk of numerous cancers. However, the association between dietary patterns and breast cancer risk is still unclear.

Objective: This systematic review was conducted to investigate and clarify the association between dietary patterns and breast cancer risk by assessing and appraising the literature published to date and evaluating the results of these studies.

Design: A broad, general and inclusive electronic literature search was conducted throughout the Google Scholar, and PubMed databases to identify studies written in English and published from 2001 to 2017.

Results: 2,215 articles were found and 112 articles were chosen for further review, of which 87 articles were excluded after reviewing the title and abstract of each article. The remaining 25 articles were included in the paper after a full review. Although in most of the articles included in this paper, no overall association was reported between the prudent, Mediterranean or Western dietary patterns and breast cancer risk, it was suggested that a Western or Western-type dietary pattern might increase the risk of breast cancer, and a prudent, Mediterranean and healthy dietary patterns might protect against estrogen receptive-negative tumors, mostly in postmenopausal women.

Conclusion: This systematic review provides evidence of an association between dietary patterns and breast cancer risk and highlights the need for further observational and interventional studies.

Author(s):

 Anahita Morgan

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