You Heard It Here First…And You Helped Make it Happen

by Cindy Pearson

Last Spring, the results of a breast cancer treatment trial were announced with great fanfare. For the first time ever, a high-quality, randomized trial demonstrated that what women eat can have a significant influence on their chances of experiencing a recurrence of the disease. Women with breast cancer were 20 percent less likely to have a recurrence if they followed a very low-fat diet. This was in addition to the benefit of drug therapy, which all women in the trial also received. The study followed women for an average of five years, long enough to see a difference in recurrence, but not enough time to know with certainty that eating less fat will also lessen the chance of dying of breast cancer. Follow-up is continuing, though, and the researchers are optimistic.

Media reports mentioned that the Women’s Intervention Nutrition Study (WINS) was controversial and that it had taken a long time for the researchers to persuade their colleagues and funders that it could be done. The timeline tells the tale: WINS didn’t officially start until the early 1990s, over a decade after earlier research observed a connection between dietary fat and breast cancer. Throughout the 1980s critics stated openly that they didn’t believe that women, especially older women, could possibly make such a major change their eating habits and maintain it over many years.

That’s where you came in. NWHN members were aware of the possible connection between breast cancer and dietary fat, and our members and other concerned individuals played a huge role in letting government funders know that women cared about this issue and eager to take part in research. NWHN members sent thousands of letters to us, many requesting “The Diet That May Save Your Life”, a brochure we wrote and distributed for several years. NWHN leaders met with researchers, wrote articles for the popular press (including a Ms. Magazine cover story in 1987 written by NWHN board member Susan Rennie), spoke out at National Cancer Institute meetings, and brought huge stacks of women’s letters to Congressional hearings. Finally, the ruckus raised by concerned women helped the researchers be taken seriously and the WINS began recruiting patients in 1994. A similar study designed to test the effectiveness of a low-fat diet in preventing breast cancer also began in the same era. This is part of the Women’s Health Initiative and results are expected to be announced in early 2006. Give yourselves a pat on the back – you’re helping us make a difference in women’s lives.

Cindy Pearson is NWHN’s Executive Director and helped carry some of those stacks of letters to Congress when she first started working here.