Review Article Diet across the Lifespan and the Association with Breast Density in Adulthood

Copyright © 2013 Jessica Lindgren et al. is is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Studies have shown inconsistent results regarding the association between dietary factors across the lifespan and breast density and breast cancer in women. Breast density is a strong risk factor for breast cancer, and the mechanism through which it in�uences cancer risk remains unclear. Breast density has been shown to be modi�able, potentially through dietary modi�cations. e goal of this paper is to summarize the current studies on diet and diet-related factors across all ages, determine which dietary factors show the strongest association with breast density, the most critical age of exposure, and identify future directions. �e identi�ed 28 studies, many of which are cross-sectional, and found that the strongest associations are among vitamin D, calcium, dietary fat, and alcohol in premenopausal women. Longitudinal studies with repeated dietary measures as well as the examination of overall diet over time are needed to con�rm these �ndings. 1