A UF study suggests cancer survivors who consumed a well-balanced diet have a 65 percent lower risk of death from cancer than survivors who ate poor quality diets.
The purpose of the study, which was published Tuesday, was to determine if a diet’s quality is related to cancer patients’ survival, said Kalyani Sonawane, the study’s senior author.
She said others had considered specific dietary components, but none had really questioned the effect of the entire diet.
“And that is something I thought should be answered,” Sonawane, 28, said.
Researchers examined data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey collected between 1988 and 1994 by the National Center for Health Statistics to evaluate the health and diets of 1,200 cancer survivors.
The survey asked participants to record what they ate the past day, Sonawane said.
They calculated the quality of survivors’ diets using the Healthy Eating Index, a 10-point scale measuring the consumption of 10 dietary components based on the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Dietary Guidelines for Americans.
“What we found is that if you are a cancer survivor and have a good score on the Healthy Index Scale, then your chances of surviving are 65 percent greater than someone’s whose quality of diet is poor,” Sonawane said.
Half of the survivors died within a 17-year-follow-up period, according to a National Center for Health Statistics Linked Mortality File.
The study is a step toward improving cancer outcomes, said Ashish Deshmukh, the study’s lead author.
“Getting cancer not only decreases your quality of life, it also leads to significant trauma and financial burden,” Deshmukh, 30, said. “If these cancer outcomes can be improved, then it will be beneficial to both the patient and society.”
Follow Madison Rubert on Twitter @MadisonRubert and contact her at madisonrubert@ufl.edu.
