Women with healthier diets before an ovarian cancer diagnosis are less likely to die in the years following the cancer than women with poorer diets, according to a new study.
The exceptions were women with diabetes or a high waist circumference, which is often linked to diabetes.
A healthy diet before diagnosis may indicate a stronger immune system and, indirectly, the capacity to respond favorably to cancer therapy, said lead author Cynthia A. Thomson of Health Promotion Sciences at the Canyon Ranch Center for Prevention and Health Promotion at the University of Arizona in Tucson.
“It also may reflect our capacity to sustain healthy eating after diagnosis, which in turn could support better health in a broader sense,” Thomson told Reuters Health by email.
Researchers looked back at 636 cases of ovarian cancer occurring between 1993 and 1998, 90 percent of which were invasive cancers.
The women had filled out dietary and physical activity questionnaires at least one year before their cancer diagnoses as part of the larger Women’s Health Initiative study. Researchers measured their heights, weights and waist circumferences.
The healthy eating index in this study measured 10 dietary components, scoring diets with a higher amount of vegetables and fruit, more variety in vegetables and fruit, more whole grains, lower amounts of fat and alcohol and more fiber as healthier than other diets.
On average, the women were diagnosed with ovarian cancer around age 63.
As of September 17, 2012, 354 of the women had died, and 305 of those died specifically from ovarian cancer.
When the researchers divided the women into three groups based on their diet quality, those in the healthiest-eating group were 27 percent less likely to die of any cause after ovarian cancer diagnosis than those in the poorest diet group, according to the results published in JNCI, the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
Read the full article from Reuters here: http://reut.rs/1t8rrIP
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