New research reveals that pre-adolescent and adolescent girls who regularly eat vegetable fats found in foods such as peanut butter may reduce their risk of later developing breast disease, the Huffington Post reports.
In the latest study published in the journal Breast Cancer Research and Treatment, researchers from the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School found that young girls who regularly consumed higher intakes of vegetable fats and nuts were at a significantly lower risk of developing benign breast disease.
Benign breast disease (BBD) is noncancerous and can occur due to infection, injury or other benign changes in the breast. BBDs includes cysts, intraductal papillomasm, fibroadenomas and fibrocystic changes, and may appear in the form of a lump, tenderness and redness in the breast. Men are also susceptible to developing benign lumps.
The latest study, called "The Grown Up Today" study, involved 9,039 females who were between the ages of 9 to 15 in 1996. The young women completed annual questionnaires through 2001, and again in 2003, 2005, 2007 and 2010. Over the years, the young women were questioned on their diets and whether or not they had been diagnosed with BBD. At the end of the study, an association was found between those who consumed larger portions of protein and fat from peanut butter, peanuts, nuts, beans (beans, lentils, and soybeans), and corn and a lowered risk of BBD.
The researchers found that for the girls that ate foods such as peanut butter twice a week, their chances of being diagnosed with BBD was lowered by 39 percent, a pattern found to be especially strong for girls that had a family history of breast cancer.
