NUTRITION for Healthy Breasts

YOU KNOW THAT EATING MORE CALORIES THAN YOU BURN can cause your body to accumulate fat.

- JIHAN MYERS

What you may not realize is that the makeup of the calories we consume also affects the makeup of our fat, which in turn impacts our risk for conditions like breast cancer and type 2 diabetes. Given that breasts are composed largely of fat, it makes sense that diet matters to breast health.

"We've learned that fat tissue is not an inert substance that just sits there-it's a very active organ that has a lot of important functions in our body like storing and releasing energy when appropriate," says Neil Iyengar, M.D., a breast oncologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center who oversees the center's research on healthy living. "As a result, the health of the fat tissue in the breast is a reflection of both overall metabolic health and the health of the breast itself." Essentially, what's on your plate affects fat tissue throughout your body, including in your breasts.

The caliber of your food is important to breast health as well. "The quality of your diet can influence things like hormone signaling in the body as a whole, but also hormone signaling specifically within the breast that can trigger inflammation," says Dr. Iyengar. "That inflammation has some significant consequences, including increasing the risk of developing breast cancer. In people who already have breast cancer it can increase the risk that the cancer may become resistant to therapies and recur."