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Effects of High Fruit-Vegetable and/or Low-Fat Intervention on Breast Nipple Aspirate Fluid Micronutrient Levels

¹ Department of Family Medicine, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan; ² Pennsylvania State University, College of Medicine, Hershey, Pennsylvania; ³ Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan; and ⁴ School of Nursing, University of North Dakota, Grand Forks, North Dakota

Requests for reprints: Zora Djuric, University of Michigan, 1500 East Hospital Drive, Room 2150 Cancer and Geriatrics Center, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-0930. Phone: 734-615-6210; Fax: 734-647-9817. E-mail: zoralong{at}umich.edu

Background: A change in diet is known to affect micronutrient levels in blood but to what extent diet can affect micronutrient levels in the breast is not yet well established.

Methods: Healthy, premenopausal women with a family history of breast cancer were randomized across four diet arms for 1 year in a 2 x 2 factorial design study: control, low-fat, high fruit-vegetable, and combination low-fat/high fruit-vegetable diets. Subjects were asked to collect breast nipple aspirate fluid (NAF) at 0, 6, and 12 months, and levels of micronutrients were measured in the fluid.

Results: A total of 122 women were enrolled, 97 were retained for 12 months, and sufficient NAF for analysis was available from 59 women at baseline, 49 at 6 months, and 50 at 12 months. Repeated measures mixed-model ANOVA was used to model the data using cholesterol levels and lactation duration as covariates, where appropriate. The high fruit-vegetable intervention, regardless of fat intake, significantly increased total carotenoid levels in NAF. In the low-fat arm, levels of total carotenoids decreased over time relative to control. Levels of total tocopherols and retinol did not change significantly. Levels of 15-F_2t-isoprostane, a marker of lipid peroxidation, also did not change significantly over time, although there was a decrease observed in the combination arm.

Conclusions: These results indicate that total carotenoid levels in NAF can be significantly increased in the breast NAF with a high fruit-vegetable diet. A low-fat diet that was achieved with little increase in fruit and vegetable intake, however, decreased NAF carotenoid levels. (Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2007;16(7):1393–9)