Higher Dietary Quality at Breast Cancer Diagnosis Linked to Lower CVD Risk

TUESDAY, April 23, 2024 (HealthDay News) -- Higher diet quality at diagnosis of breast cancer is associated with a lower risk for cardiovascular disease (CVD) events and death, especially the Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension diet quality index, according to a study published online April 17 in JNCI Cancer Spectrum.

Isaac J. Ergas, Ph.D., M.P.H., from Kaiser Permanente Northern California in Oakland, and colleagues examined whether higher diet quality at breast cancer diagnosis was related to a lower risk for CVD and CVD-related death in a prospective cohort of women diagnosed with invasive breast cancer between 2005 and 2013. At the time of breast cancer diagnosis, scores from five diet quality indices consistent with healthy eating were obtained. For each diet quality index, the scores were classified into ascending quartiles of concordance.

The researchers found a significantly lower risk for heart failure, arrhythmia, cardiac arrest, valvular heart disease, venous thromboembolic disease, and CVD-related death when comparing the highest with the lowest quartiles of the Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension diet quality index. There were also inverse associations for the healthy plant-based dietary index with heart failure (hazard ratio, 0.60) and for the alternate Mediterranean dietary index with arrhythmia (hazard ratio, 0.74).

"Implementing diets concordant with healthy dietary patterns may be beneficial for preventing CVD and CVD-related deaths for breast cancer patients, who have been shown to be at higher risk of CVD as compared with the general population," the authors write.

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