Subscribe RSSWomen in the study — 35,000 of them — were asked in a questionnaire whether they used fish oil supplements. Six years later, those who did were much less likely to have had breast cancer.
"We found that women who were using fish oil at the time that they entered the study had a 32 percent lower risk of breast cancer than women who did not use fish oil supplements," said study leader Emily White of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle.
She says there's good reason to suspect that omega-3 fatty acids might protect against cancer. "There's a strong evidence that cancer is related to inflammation. So fish oil fits into that mechanism, since it is an anti-inflammatory drug."
Despite the evidence, White doesn't think her study alone justifies a recommendation that women start taking fish oil capsules.
"No, I don't think that a single study can lead to public health recommendations to start taking supplements," she says. "Really, we need randomized trials, where people are assigned to take a supplement versus not, to answer whether a pill would be useful to take for cancer prevention."
