A new retrospective study has reported that a diet consisting primarily of vegetables, fruit, soy foods, milk, poultry and fish appears to be protective against breast cancer. The study was designed to investigate the relationship between dietary patterns and risk of breast cancer among Chinese women. It included 438 women with primary breast cancer and 438 cancer-free matched controls. Dietary intake was assessed by means of personal interviews using a validated food frequency questionnaire. Two dietary patterns were identified: (1) vegetable, fruit, soy, milk, poultry, fish; and (2) refined grain, red meat, pickle.

Women in the highest fourth of the vegetable-fruit-soy-milk-poultry-fish dietary pattern were found to have a 74% lower risk of breast cancer than those in the lowest quartile. However, the refined grain-meat-pickle dietary pattern was linked to almost 2.6 times the risk of breast cancer for the women consuming the highest versus the lowest amounts. The authors conclude that a diet characterized by high consumption of vegetables, fruit, soy, milk, poultry, and fish and low consumption of refined grains, red meat, and pickles is associated with reduced risk of breast cancer in Chinese women.