A fast way to reduce your breast cancer risk

Researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine say that they have found what they report to be a fast way to shrink women’s risk of breast cancer.

They say that eating less in the evening, curtailing the hours during the day when you eat meals and snacks, and then fasting for at least 12 hours at night – before and while you sleep – can drop your blood glucose level and cut back your chances of developing breast cancer.

“Increasing the duration of overnight fasting could be a novel strategy to reduce the risk of developing breast cancer,” says researcher Catherine Marinac. “This is a simple dietary change that we believe most women can understand and adopt. It may have a big impact on public health without requiring complicated counting of calories or nutrients.”

The California scientists discovered that women who fast for an increasing amount of time overnight experience much better control of their blood sugar levels. And those reduced levels translate to less of a cancer risk.

The study demonstrates that for every three hour extension in the time you fast at night, you drop your blood sugar level after you eat by around 4 percent. In the research, that blood sugar reduction linked to fasting occurred no matter how much food each woman consumed.

“The dietary advice for cancer prevention usually focuses on limiting consumption of red meat, alcohol and refined grains while increasing plant-based foods,” says researcher Ruth Patterson, who is program leader of the university’s cancer prevention program. “New evidence suggests that when and how often people eat can also play a role in cancer risk.”

Sadly, too many of us think that a pleasant evening consists of a marathon snack session with a bag of chips or other munchable accessory close at hand while we gaze glassy-eyed at a video screen. A better idea is to eat a small dessert after dinner and have nothing else to eat until breakfast the next morning. Your waistline and your body’s built-in cancer defense system function much better that way.

You’ll also find that without food traversing your digestive tract late at night, you can sleep better, too.