A study looking at how well women follow advice about a low fat diet after treatment for breast cancer (WINS UK Stage 1)

The researchers found that following dietary advice, women could reduce the amount of fat in their diet by half and keep to this diet for up to 2 years.

The study recruited more than 100 women who had already had treatment for early breast cancer.

All the women taking part attended small group sessions with a dietician over a 2 year period. Both groups were given advice about eating a healthy diet, but

• Women in group 1 were given specific advice about reducing the amount of fat they ate
• Women in group 2 were not

Everybody filled in a food diary at the beginning of the study, every 3 months for the first year and every 6 months in the 2nd year. In the diary, they wrote down everything they had to eat and drink for 4 days. This showed the researchers how much fat the women reported they were eating at different times.

After 3 months, nearly half the women in group 1 (48%) said they had reduced the amount of fat they were eating by at least a half. After 2 years, the number of women saying this had dropped a little to 46%.

In group 2, about 1 in 10 women (11%) said they had reduced the amount of fat they were eating by at least a half after 3 months. In this group, the figure remained about the same after 2 years.

This study showed that women who had specific dietary advice were able to reduce the amount of fat they ate. In the future, researchers hope to try and find out if making these changes to the diet can make it less likely that breast cancer will come back.

We have based this summary on information from the team who ran the trial. The information they sent us has been reviewed independently (peer reviewed ) and published in a medical journal. The figures we quote above were provided by the trial team. We have not analysed the data ourselves.