helping you live healthy laying off the
unhealthy fats can help you live longer
and a healthier life according to a new
study a low-fat diet may also decrease
the risk of dying from breast cancer for
20 years researchers studied thousands
of postmenopausal women with no history
of breast cancer during the study women
from both groups were eventually
diagnosed with breast cancer but those
who ate less unhealthy fats and added
more fruits veggies and whole grains to
their diet had a 21 percent lower risk
of dying from the disease so to talk
about the importance of a healthy diet
as registered dietitian Kayla Fisher so
this study talk about the results are
you surprised to learn this or good
questions so the study as you said
separated the group into two
interventions one group were told to
follow their usual diet the dietary
intervention group were instructed to
lower their overall fat intake but also
increase their intake of fruits
vegetables and whole grains so in the
intervention we can't separate those two
when we look at the results we can't say
if the results came from the low-fat
diet or did they come from the increased
intake of fiber food vegetables and
whole grains yeah I'm sure there would
be more research to come specifically
looking at the role of dietary fat but
we want to look at the study results in
the context of the overall body of
research we have now 20 years later
which really tells us more about the
type of fats we eat so and we were
talking about this on the break it's
it's not you know like years ago it was
eat low-fat eat low-fat and now it's
like oh you can eat fat depending on the
kind of fat exact so is that still a
good suggestion I believe so I think
that when we look at the research we
have to date we have plenty of research
and abundance of research to show that
there are many health benefits for
general health but also preventing
disease and we follow more of a
Mediterranean style eating pattern which
encourages healthy fats keep in mind
when the study started as you said low
fat was what we thought was healthiest
but we know more now I would also
speculate that the dietary intervention
group by lowering their fat intake also
lowered their intake of foods like red
meat fried foods processed meats so we
may be not the good exactly so we are
probably getting some benefit for
that as well even though they lowered
their fat and take overall and what are
some examples of good fats yes so we
want to choose our unsaturated fats so
examples would be things like olive oil
nuts and seeds fatty fish avocado
flaxseed okay yeah those are some
delicious so that's not that difficult
yeah what about processed foods
processed food that have high fat that's
really bad right I would say we really
want to try to avoid those so we have
other research even that came out
recently related to cancer risk that
showed that a lower intake of processed
foods help lower our cancer risk and
vice versa higher intake of processed
foods was connected to higher rates of
cancer especially colon and rectum
cancers I think it's difficult for
families you know we all want the
convenience and we don't want to have to
like take forever to prepare food
especially with young ones and that's
why I think a lot of families eat
processed foods I agree what are some
tips for people to make it easier to
avoid the processed food and actually
eat what's good for them yes so a few
one would be trying to incorporate more
fruits and vegetables maybe as snacks if
we don't have his time as much time to
prepare them before meals
keeping fruits and veggies cut up and
ready to eat makes them more accessible
and we're more likely to eat them that
way I've heard keeping them on the
counter ease yeah like I'm not going on
the counter see visually see it at the
front of the fridge where we see it when
we open the refrigerator other ideas we
do have some more convenient options now
things like steamer bags okay for fresh
vegetables that only take a couple
minutes in the microwave you can also
buy them frozen I would say try to avoid
the ones that are sauced and seasoned
because then we're gonna get more
broadly with cheese probably not the
best so try to choose the plain but
fresh or frozen preparing them in in
bulk so maybe cooking a larger amount of
vegetables when you do so that you have
them for the next couple of days at
dinnertime as well as whole grains so
you can look for the more convenient
options but try to be mindful of the
ingredients try to choose things that
have more fiber lower amounts of sodium
and added fats
it's definitely impressive you know
everybody I think fears the c-word
cancer and to see that these foods can
make such a difference it really does
make you want to eat right I would think
absolutely I'm the study
takeaways really line up well with
American Cancer Society's
recommendations for a diet to reduce
your risk of cancer which would be more
fruits and vegetables more whole grains
less processed foods less sugary foods
thank you so much for coming on this
reporting that perspective and of course
more info we have a health section on
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