HOBART, Australia, May 30 — The data suggesting that a high-fat diet increases the risk of skin cancer were never too substantial, and now they are even thinner, according to Australian researchers.
Indeed, the results of two observational studies using the same participants, but different methodologies, suggested that a high-fat diet may even have some protective effect, according to Robert Granger, DrPH, of the Menzies Research Institute here.
Earlier case-control and cohort studies of the issue have had mixed results, Dr. Granger and colleagues noted in the open-access online journal BMC Cancer, although a 1995 interventional study in Texas suggested that a low-fat diet protects non-melanoma skin cancer patients against new skin cancers.
To test the link, Dr. Granger and colleagues conducted a case-control study, with 652 patients with either cutaneous malignant melanoma (CMM), basal cell carcinoma (BCC), or squamous cell carcinoma (SCC), and 471 healthy controls.
