Can a Low-Fat Diet Really Prevent Ovarian Cancer?
By Dr. Jonny Bowden A new study has been touted as showing that a low-fat diet can reduce the risk for ovarian cancer. But the results are a lot iffier than you might believe. The data came from the Women’s Health Initiative Dietary Modification trial. Women who decreased the amount of dietary fat they ate were 40 percent less likely to develop ovarian cancer than women who followed “normal dietary patterns.” Here’s the problem. When people follow what they think is “healthy” advice (like eat less fat), they are also more likely to do other things that can have health benefits (like stop smoking or eat more vegetables or exercise more). There’s no way to account for how much the results are due to outside factors (what researchers call “confounding variables”) like these. In addition, a lot of research has shown that even when people are counseled to “eat less fat,” eventually their fat intake starts to creep up. In this study the women were counseled to eat a diet containing 20 percen
