KEY TAKEAWAYS
- The study aimed to investigate the relationship between diet quality at diagnosis and the risk of CVD and CVD-related death in BC survivors.
- Researchers noticed that higher diet quality at diagnosis correlated with reduced risk of CVD events and death among newly diagnosed patients with BC.
Women with breast cancer face an elevated risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD) compared to those without the disease. However, it is uncertain whether adopting a higher-quality diet at the time of breast cancer (BC) diagnosis mitigates this risk.
Isaac J. Ergas and the team aimed to elucidate whether improved diet quality upon BC diagnosis is associated with a reduced likelihood of experiencing CVD events and CVD-related death.
They performed an inclusive analysis involving 3415 participants from the Pathway Study, a prospective cohort comprising women diagnosed with invasive breast cancer at Kaiser Permanente Northern California between 2005 and 2013, followed until December 31, 2021.
Scores were divided into ascending quartiles of concordance for each diet quality index, and adjusted HRs with 95% CIs were calculated using multivariable analysis. Two-sided P values were reported.
The Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension diet quality index, it was associated with lower risk of heart failure (HR = 0.53, 95% CI = 0.33 to 0.87; Ptrend = .03), arrhythmia (HR = 0.77, 95% CI = 0.62 to 0.94; Ptrend = .008), cardiac arrest (HR = 0.77, 95% CI = 0.61 to 0.96; Ptrend = .02), valvular heart disease (HR = 0.79, 95% CI = 0.64 to 0.98; Ptrend = .046), venous thromboembolic disease (HR = 0.75, 95% CI = 0.60 to 0.93; Ptrend = .01), and CVD-related death (HR = 0.70, 95% CI = 0.50 to 0.99; Ptrend = .04) when comparing the highest with lowest quartiles.
Inverse associations were also found between the healthy plant-based dietary index and heart failure (HR = 0.60, 95% CI = 0.39 to 0.94; Ptrend = .02), as well as the alternate Mediterranean dietary index and arrhythmia (HR = 0.74, 95% CI = 0.60 to 0.93; Ptrend = .02).
The study concluded that among newly diagnosed BC patients, higher diet quality at diagnosis was associated with a reduced risk of CVD events and death.
The study was sponsored by the National Cancer Institute.
Source: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38627946/
Ergas IJ, Cheng RK, Roh JM, et al. (2024). “Diet quality and cardiovascular disease risk among breast cancer survivors in the Pathways Study.” JNCI Cancer Spectr. 2024 Feb 29;8(2):pkae013. doi: 10.1093/jncics/pkae013. PMID: 38627946; PMCID: PMC11021810.
