March 10, 1998
Media Contact:
Kate Deely, Nancy Stringer
(619) 543-6163
UCSD CANCER CENTER AWARDED $13 MILLION GRANT FOR UNIQUE DIET, CANCER STUDY
The National Cancer Institute has awarded a $13.3 million grant to the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) Cancer Center to study how diet might help prevent a recurrence of breast cancer.
The 8-year study, called the Women's Healthy Eating and Living (WHEL) study, will follow 3,000 women who were previously diagnosed with breast cancer and who are currently free of the disease. Participants will be placed by random selection into one of two groups -- one group will eat the recommended healthy diet; the other group will eat a very high-vegetable diet and participate in an intensive diet modification program.
The study, led by John Pierce, Ph.D., director of the Cancer Prevention and Control Program of the UCSD Cancer Center, will be carried out at seven sites in California, Oregon, Arizona and Texas. Principal investigator for the UCSD site is Vicky Jones, M.D., a UCSD Cancer Center oncologist who treats women with breast cancer.
"Breast cancer is a devastating disease, " said Jones. "Each year, more than 180,000 women are diagnosed with breast cancer and 44,000 die from a recurrence. Having a recurrence is a very real threat facing all breast cancer survivors, and helping to prevent such a recurrence is one of our most important research priorities."
Five years ago, UCSD Cancer Center took up the challenge made by San Diegans John and Christy Walton to study the role of food, rather than supplements, in decreasing cancer risk. The Walton Family Foundation supported a pilot project of 93 women in San Diego to demonstrate the feasibility of such a study, and then the first two years of the full project to demonstrate UCSD's capability of coordinating such an important multicenter study. The total gift to the University was $5 million.
"This is a wonderful example of how the community can help to get important research started, by contributing to promising new ideas that may lead to major federal funding," said John Alksne, M.D., dean of the School of Medicine and vice chancellor for Health Sciences at UCSD. "Through the initial study, Dr. Pierce and his colleagues were able to prove that such a study was possible, paving the way for the federal grant needed to answer this important research question. This grant firmly establishes UCSD as a major center for prevention research in addition to its well-known strength in the basic biological sciences."
Researchers have long been interested in the role that diet might play in breast cancer. Cultures in which high-vegetable, low-fat diets are prevalent have much lower rates of breast cancer than Western countries, and lower than expected rates of recurrence. When women from these cultures migrate to Western countries, their breast cancer risk increases.
Scientists initially thought it was only dietary fat, or certain vitamins in the diet that might affect the cancer risk, but subsequent studies generally have not demonstrated a significant effect.
"When we first started the WHEL study, most scientists thought our research was outside of mainstream medicine," said Pierce. "At the time, the National Cancer Institute supported studies of dietary supplements and their effect on cancer, rather than studies of the foods we eat."
Nevertheless, the UCSD Cancer Center committed to building a strong nutritional program and recruited Cheryl Rock, Ph.D., R.D., as its leader. Rock is one of the primary investigators on the WHEL study.
"There are many chemicals in vegetables and fruits that are known in the laboratory to prevent cancer," said Rock. "The WHEL study is exciting as it's the first large scale study to investigate the role of the overall diet. This empowers women who are breast cancer survivors because diet is something over which they have some control."
Said Pierce: "We set about to prove that women could and would make a major change in their diet in the interest of their own long-term health. The awarding of this grant to UCSD is a strong message from the federal government and our peers that we are investigating one of the most important hypotheses in cancer prevention."
To be eligible to participate in the WHEL study, women must have been diagnosed with breast cancer within the last four years. For further information about participation, call the WHEL Study Center at 822-0396.
UCSD Cancer Center is the only National Cancer Institute-designated clinical cancer center in San Diego and Imperial counties, and one of only 15 such centers in the country.
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NOTE: A copy of a Cancer-Fighting Compounds chart can be downloaded from the UCSD University Communications Office web site (www-uris.ucsd.edu/ucomm/main/) by clicking on this news release. WHEL study researchers are available for media interviews and can be reached through the UCSD Health Sciences Communications Office, (619) 543-6163.
WHEL STUDY RESEARCH SITES
University of California, San Diego San Diego, California 619/822-0396
Kaiser Permanente, Northern California Oakland, California 510/450-2144
Center for Health Research, Kaiser Permanente Northwest Portland, Oregon 503/335-6683
University of California, Davis Department of Epidemiology & Preventive Medicine Davis, California 530/752-9435
University of Arizona Tuscon, Arizona 520/321-7744
Northern California Cancer Center Union City, California 510/429-2580
The University of Texas, M.D. Anderson Cancer Center Houston, Texas 713/745-3275
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