ArticleCancer epidemiology, biomarkers & prevention : a publication of the American Association for Cancer Research, cosponsored by the American Society of Preventive Oncology2021
Healthful and Unhealthful Plant-Based Diets and Risk of Breast Cancer in U.S. Women: Results from the Nurses' Health Studies.
Article in Cancer epidemiology, biomarkers & prevention : a publication of the American Association for Cancer Research, cosponsored by the American Society of Preventive Oncology, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 46 papers, 7 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
46 citing papers in PubMed, 7 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Healthful and unhealthful plant-based diets and site-specific cancer risk: a systematic review and meta-analysis of observational studies.European journal of nutrition · 2026Pooled it
- Cancer Risk and Mortality Following Substitution of Animal Foods with Plant Foods: A Systematic Review.Current nutrition reports · 2025Pooled it
- Associations Between Dietary Factors and Breast Cancer Risk: A Systematic Review of Evidence from the MENA Region.Nutrients · 2025Pooled it
- Adulthood dietary and lifestyle patterns and risk of breast cancer: Global Cancer Update Programme (CUP Global) systematic literature review.The American journal of clinical nutrition · 2025Pooled it
- Dietary interventions in cancer: a systematic review of all randomized controlled trials.Journal of the National Cancer Institute · 2024Pooled it
- Barriers to Adopting a Plant-Based Diet in High-Income Countries: A Systematic Review.Nutrients · 2024Pooled it
- Global epidemiology of breast cancer based on risk factors: a systematic review.Frontiers in oncology · 2023Pooled it
- Planetary Health Diet Index and breast cancer risk.British journal of cancer · 2026Article
- DASH, Mediterranean, and Plant-Based Diets and Cancer Risk in Women: A Narrative Review Based on Diet Quality Indices.Nutrients · 2026Review
- Article
- Association Between Plant-Based Diet Index and Breast Cancer Risk Stratified by Menopausal and Hormone Receptor Status: A Case-Control Study Among Korean Women.Journal of Korean medical science · 2026Article
- Knowledge and determinants of plant-based diet adoption among healthcare providers in a Buddhist teaching hospital: a cross-sectional study.Journal of health, population, and nutrition · 2026Article
- Lower-Cost Nonsurgical Primary Prevention Strategies for Women at High Risk of Breast Cancer: A Scoping Review.The breast journal · 2026Article
- A path to sustainable and healthy diets: modeling ovo-lacto-vegetarian food-based dietary guidelines.Frontiers in nutrition · 2026Article
- Plant-based diet, metabolic signature, genetic susceptibility, and risk of musculoskeletal disorders: a large-scale population-based prospective cohort study.Frontiers in public health · 2026Article
- Plant-based diet quality is associated with esophageal mucosa-associated microbiome profiles and disease severity in a high-risk Chinese population.Journal of oral microbiology · 2026Article
- Article
- Dietary Patterns and Incident Chronic Constipation in Three Prospective Cohorts of Middle- and Older-Aged Adults.Gastroenterology · 2025Article
- Not All Plants Are Equal: Diet Quality and Inflammation in Vegans and Vegetarians in Urban Poland.Nutrients · 2025Article
- Plant-based dietary patterns and age-specific risk of multimorbidity of cancer and cardiometabolic diseases: a prospective analysis.The lancet. Healthy longevity · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundPlant-based diets have been associated with lower risk of various diseases, including type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and other cardiometabolic risk factors. However, the association between plant-based diet quality and breast cancer remains unclear.
methodsWe prospectively followed 76,690 women from the Nurses' Health Study (NHS, 1984-2016) and 93,295 women from the NHSII (1991-2017). Adherence to an overall plant-based diet index (PDI), a healthful PDI (hPDI), and an unhealthful PDI (uPDI) was assessed using previously developed indices. Cox proportional hazards models were used to estimate HR and 95% confidence intervals (CI) for incident invasive breast cancer.
resultsOver 4,841,083 person-years of follow-up, we documented 12,482 incident invasive breast cancer cases. Women with greater adherence to PDI and hPDI were at modestly lower risk of breast cancer [(HR
conclusionsThis study provides evidence that adherence to a healthful plant-based diet may reduce the risk of breast cancer, especially those that are more likely to be aggressive tumors. IMPACT: This is the first prospective study investigating the relation between healthful and unhealthful plant-based dietary indices and risk of total and subtype-specific breast cancer.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.