Increased Dietary Choline May Reduce Breast Cancer Risk

Finally some positive news about possible breast cancer reduction and the use of vitamins. A study conducted by a team of doctors including Dr Xinran Xu and Dr Marilie Gammon of the Department of Community and Preventive Medicine at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, in New York, confirmed that greater intake of the B vitamin choline is associated with a reduction in the risk of breast cancer.

The study was funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and published in the June 2008 edition of The FASEB Journal, the offical publication of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (Xu X, Gammon MD, Zeisel SH, Lee YL, et al , Choline metabolism and risk of breast cancer in a population-based study. FASEB J 2008 Jun;22(6):2045-52. Epub 2008 Jan 29).

"Choline metabolism may play an important role in breast cancer etiology..."

Choline is an essential nutrient required for methyl group metabolism, but its role in carcinogenesis and tumor progression is not well understood. The Scientists compared dietary intake data from 1,508 women with breast cancer with 1,556 women whoid not have the disease. They focused on choline and two other, related, nutrients, methionine and betaine, involved in methylation, which plays a role in cancer development [odds ratio (OR): 0.76; 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.58-1.00].

Women whose intake of choline was in the highest one-fifth of participants (>455mg/day) had a 24% lower risk of breast cancer than women whose intake was in the lowest fifth (<196mg/day). Despite choline’s importance for maintaining normal cellular function, only 10% of Americans are estimated to meet the Institute of Medicine’s adequate choline intake level of 425mg/day for women and 550 mg/day for men and breastfeeding women. This concerns the team as they believe that their 'findings suggest that choline metabolism may play an important role in breast cancer etiology'.