Milk, Greens and Ovarian Cancer Survival

by Michael Greger, M.D.

Ovarian cancer is a major cause of cancer mortality in women. A study just released this last month, though, showed that there were two things that could significantly improved the survival of women diagnosed with ovarian cancer, vegetables, especially cruciferous vegetables (kale, collards, broccoli, cabbage, etc) and vitamin E in foods (nuts, seeds, beans, greens).

The one thing that seemed to worsen survival was dairy. Those that consumed lots of dairy seems to carry about a 30% excess risk of early death--and the problem seemed to come from the milk sugar, lactose, and not the milk fat, so even nonfat dairy seemed to worsen the survival of those with ovarian cancer.