• Effects of dietary factors on the modification of breast cancer risk among high risk germline mutation/polymorphism carrier women
  • SayedAlireza Mousavi,1 Fatemeh Karami,2,* Fatemeh Vaghefi,3
    1. Department of Biology, School of Basic Science, Science and Research Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Islamic Republic of Iran
    2. Department of Medical Genetics, Applied Biophotonics Research Center, Science and Research Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Islamic Republic of Iran
    3. Department of Biology, School of Basic Science, Science and Research Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Islamic Republic of Iran


  • Introduction: Recently, effects of diet modifications have seized great attentions in decreasing the risk of cancer in high risk genetic alterations carriers. Owing to the extensive investigations on breast cancer, it was aimed to review the dietary factors which can alleviate or increase the risk of breast cancer among high risk mutation carriers.
  • Methods: We explored the internet in Google Scholar, Pubmed, Pubmed Central and Bing search engines using main key words including Breast cancer risk, gene polymorphism, gene expression, variant and dietary factors. All the manuscripts after 2000 were included in the present review.
  • Results: Eating red meat, coffee and alcohol were the most frequent dietary factors which have been assayed in hot spot mutation carriers. It was demonstrated that diets rich in red meat can dramatically increase the risk in BRCA1/2 mutation carriers. Coffee drinking could decrease the risk in BRCA1 carriers whereas the risk of breast cancer was different in heavy alcohol drinkers carrying hot spot variants.
  • Conclusion: Different dietary factors effects among mutation carriers is strongly indicating that personalized diet in addition to the mutation screening of high risk family members of breast cancer patients can remarkably reduce the burden of inherited breast cancer incidence. However, further studies are warranted to define the role of dietary factors on the overall risk of breast cancer among other gene variants carriers.
  • Keywords: Dietary factor, gene polymorphism, gene expression, breast cancer, risk