Some vegetables improve breast cancer survival: Study

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Chinese women who ate cabbage, broccoli and leafy greens saw improved survival rates after breast cancer than women who did not eat these cruciferous vegetables, said an United States study presented on Tuesday.

The findings came from data on 4,886 Chinese breast cancer survivors aged 20 to 75 who were diagnosed with stage one to stage four breast cancer from 2002 to 2006 and who were part of the Shanghai Breast Cancer Survival study.

Women who ate more cruciferous vegetables over the 36 months following their diagnosis saw their risk of dying from any cause decrease by 27 per cent to 62 per cent compared to women who reporting eating little or none of these veggies.

The risk of dying of breast cancer decreased by 22 to 62 per cent for the cruciferous veggie eaters, and their chance of experiencing a recurrence of breast cancer dropped by 21 to 35 per cent.