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News in brief

A diet high in fruit and vegetables has been linked to an increased ovarian cancer survival rate by a recent study carried out at the University of Illinois (IL, USA). The study set out to evaluate the hypothesis that ovarian cancer patients whose prediagnosis diet closely reflected health recommendations experience a survival advantage compared with women with ovarian cancer who had previously reported poorer diets. A sample of 341 women from Illinois diagnosed with incident epithelial ovarian cancer between 1994 and 1998 were studied. These women had all previously participated in a case–control study that collected demographic, clinico–pathologic, and lifestyle-related information, including details regarding diet. The participants had each completed a food questionnaire. The data collected from these questionnaires were categorized using the Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2005. The study found that higher total fruit and vegetable consumption, as well as higher vegetable consumption alone led to a survival advantage. A statistically significant improvement in survival was also observed for women who regularly ate healthier grains, whereas higher intakes of less healthy meats were linked to a survival disadvantage. Further subgroup analyses showed that only yellow vegetables and cruciferous vegetables, such as those belonging to the cabbage and cauliflower family, had a significant association with longer survival time. The association between high-meat diets and shorter survival rate was specifically linked to the red and cured/processed meat subgroups. “The study findings suggest that food patterns 3–5 years prior to a diagnosis of epithelial ovarian cancer have the potential to influence survival time” the authors explain in the recent Journal of the American Dietetic Association article. The study concluded that prediagnosis adherence to healthy diets reflecting recommendations for optimal nutrition and cancer prevention may have benefits that continue even once an ovarian cancer patient has been diagnosed. Lead author Therese Dolecek from the School of Public Health, University of Illinois, commented that “well-designed future studies that evaluate the long-term effects of preand post-diet on ovarian cancer outcomes will be necessary to confirm and better understand the real implications of our study findings.”