New research has highlighted several foods that may reduce the risk of breast cancer.
A Swedish study links coffee drinking to a reduced risk of one kind of breast cancer.
The team from the Karolinska Institutet found evidence that drinking coffee can reduce the risk of antio-estrogen-resistant oestrogen-receptor (ER)-negative breast cancer.
They found that coffee drinkers have a lower rate of ER-negative breast cancer than women who drink coffee rarely or not at all.
In the journal Breast Cancer Research, they write: "There is often conflicting information about the beneficial effects of coffee – when we compared our results to that of a German study we discovered that their data showed the same trend, but the relationship was much weaker.
"We suggest that this may have something to do with the way the coffee was prepared, or the type of bean preferred."
In a second study, a team at the University of Missouri, USA, say that a compound in parsley, celery and other plant products, called apigenin, can prevent some breast cancer tumour cells from multiplying and growing.
Dr Salman Hyder and his team exposed rats with breast cancer to apigenin. The rats developed fewer tumours and showed delays in tumour development.
Details are published in the journal Cancer Prevention Research. Dr Hyder said: "We know that certain synthetic hormones used in hormone replacement therapy (HRT) accelerate breast tumour development.
"In our study, we exposed the rats to one of the chemicals used in the most common HRTs received in the US – a progestin called medroxyprogesterone acetate – which also happens to be the same synthetic hormone that accelerates breast tumour development."
Apigenin could be useful in protecting women on HRT, Dr Hyder believes. He added that it is already available in supplements.
Mafuvadze, B. et al. Apigenin prevents development of medroxyprogesterone acetate-accelerated 7,12-dimethylbenz(a)anthracene-induced mammary tumors in Sprague-Dawley rats. Cancer Prevention Research, published online April 19, 2011.
Li, J. et al. Coffee consumption modifies risk of estrogen-receptor negative breast cancer. Breast Cancer Research (in press).
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