Parents of adolescent girls may have a new reason to limit their child's pizza and hamburger intake.

Consuming certain types of fat as a child was found to be associated with having a higher breast density in young adults, according to researchers from the University of Maryland School of Medicine — and this can lead to an increased risk of breast cancer.

Data from the Dietary Intervention Study in Children (DISC) was analyzed for this study. DISC was a randomized clinical test that started in 1988 that enrolled 663 children from ages eight to 10 years old, including 301 girls, to assess the diet of these children. A follow-up study was conducted when the participants were 25 to 29 years old that measured breast density using MR for 177 of the females.
Researchers, including Dr. Seungyoun Jung, fellow in the department of epidemiology and public health, and Joanne Dorgan, Ph.D., MPH, professor in the department of epidemiology and public health, analyzed this study and found that higher adolescent intake of saturated fat and lower intake of mono- and polyunsaturated fat were associated with higher percentage dense breast volume (DBV) in early adulthood.

“Among 177 women who participated in the Dietary Intervention Study in Children, dietary intakes at ages 10-18 were assessed on five occasions and averaged to represent the long-term intakes during adolescence,” Jung told HCB News.

“To evaluate the trend for the association between average fat intake and breast density, we compared the mean breast density across women with increasing fat intake after taking into account multiple factors,” she said.

The team had taken into consideration variables such as race, education, adulthood fat level, number of live births, and total energy and protein intake, and the results showed that women in the highest quartile of saturated fat intake had a mean percent DBV of 21.5 compared to 16.4 for those in the lowest quartile. There were similar findings for monounsaturated fat intake.

“There is no clinical cut-point to define high versus low percent DBV to indicate women at increased risk of breast cancer,” said Jung. “However, because there is a gradient of increasing breast cancer risk with increasing breast density, the differences in percent DBV we observed, if confirmed, could potentially be of interest with regard to later breast cancer risk.”

The team does acknowledge limitations to the study since they could not evaluate whether their results were independent of other possible factors associated with breast density. Additionally, the majority of patients were Caucasian and the study was based on a small population size.

Jung believes that diet consumed in early life is important, and may help in chronic disease risk or protective benefits later on in life; and in addition to lowering breast density, it may also prevent obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular disease. However, a larger study of a racially and ethnically diverse population is still needed to replicate their findings.

Population Health Homepage