High Fat Diet in Puberty Linked to Basal-Like Breast Cancer

Young women who eat excess amounts of saturated fats during their teenage years increase their risk of basal-like breast cancer, according to a study published in Breast Cancer Research. Many basal-like tumors are also triple-negative.

In research conducted on mice, scientists at Michigan State University found that a diet high in saturated animal fat caused excess cell growth that altered the normal structure of the breast and altered immune cells.

And the effects of the high-fat diet were found even if the mice did not gain weight.  That means that the "findings are relevant to a much broader segment of the population than just those who are overweight," according to microbiology professor and co-author researcher Richard Schwartz. "This shows the culprit is the fat itself rather than weight gain."

• Read more about TNBC in my book, Surviving Triple-Negative Breast Cancer.

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