ABSTRACT
Several lines of evidence support the importance of nutritional and dietary factors in the etiology of breast cancer. The first type of evidence comes from studies of changing incidence and mortality that suggest the effects of changing environmental factors in a country in increasing the incidence of breast cancer. Breast cancer is the most important cause of death from cancer in women in the Western World, though in some countries, this position will shortly be overtaken by lung cancer. In Japanese migrants to California, the incidence of breast cancer in premenopausal women has now almost reached that of the Caucasian population. One possible mechanism for the effect of high-fat diets increasing the risk of breast cancer would be through changes in serum cholesterol and/or plasma lipids. S. Graham et al. reported the analysis of food frequency questionnaires administered to 2024 cases of breast cancer and 1463 hospital controls without cancer at Roswell Park Memorial Institute from 1958 to 1965.
