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The Women’s Health Initiative (WHI) played a vital role in improving healthcare research for women. It provided a significant amount of data on such conditions as breast, colorectal, and ovarian cancer, heart disease, and stroke (National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute [NHLBI], 2019). The vital information about postmenopausal women’s response to hormone therapy became the basis for many subsequent studies. However, current practices built on the results of the WHI’s research may present other standards of care. For instance, the selected article by Prentice et al. (2019) discusses the most recent best practices for women with or at risk of breast cancer. The new standard of care shows evidence that a low-fat diet, deemed insignificant by the WHI study, is beneficial to women for preventing or improving their risks of breast cancer.
Disorder Description
Breast cancer is a serious and common condition that has one of the highest mortality rates among women (Tharpe, Farley, & Jordan, 2017). It is a type of cancer that affects the cells of the breast and is much more prevalent in women than in men (Senkus et al., 2015). Its symptoms include breast lumps, changes in breasts’ appearance, skip pigmentation, flaking, redness, or scaling (Tharpe et al., 2017). Some risk factors can help clinicians to identify breast cancer sooner. These are genetic predisposition, a history of atypical hyperplasia, low parity, and exposure to radiation and estrogen (Senkus et al., 2015). Nonetheless, the absence of risk factors in many cases makes the diagnosis of this condition more challenging, while also increasing the need to develop reliable preventive strategies. Furthermore, the debate over lifestyle elements, such as one’s diet, alcohol consumption, and obesity, continues.
Best Practice
The current best practice for assessing and managing breast cancer consider lifestyle changes to be a vital part of the healing process. The study by the WHI focuses on dietary lifestyle changes and their effect on breast cancer, and the selected research article also presents data about this part of the treatment. According to Prentice et al. (2019), a diet with low fat and an increase in the consumption of vegetables, fruit, and grains leads to some improvements in women’s breast cancer incidence and mortality. While these changes may not affect primary breast cancer incidence directly, the authors argue that they lower the risk of other health problems, thus affecting the risk of breast cancer (Prentice et al., 2019). As a result, dietary intervention with a plant-based, low-fat diet is recommended to decrease the potential harm of breast cancer for postmenopausal women.
These findings differ from the data presented by the WHI. The original investigation by the WHI did not support the role of low-fat diets in reducing the risks of breast cancer (NHLBI, 2019). The WHI’s conclusions that a low-fat diet does not have a significant impact on prevention and treatment may have severe effects on women’s health. For instance, the Western-style diet is considered by new studies due to its high prevalence in the US and other developed countries. This type of eating includes high processed food contents as well as high animal fat and low plant carbohydrate intake (Prentice et al., 2019). As a result, people who adhere to this diet can be at increased risk for a variety of conditions, including breast cancer (Chlebowski et al., 2018). The failure of a healthcare provider to address this part of one’s diet can make the patient vulnerable to other issues and increased mortality.
Use in Clinical Practice
The latest data supports the new standards of care that highlight dietary changes as a necessary part of prevention and management. Previous studies have investigated the findings of the WHI and found that a low-fat diet has more influence on breast cancer and related conditions than the original research suggested. Chlebowski et al. (2017) argue that a low-fat diet can increase survival rates for women who have breast cancer. Here, the overall survival is addressed, showing that even after the diagnosis was established, women should benefit from improving their nutritional choices. Later, a study by Chlebowski et al. (2018) further supported the latest finding, calling for a guideline to consider dietary interventions as vital to the health of postmenopausal women with the diagnosis. Finally, the research by Prentice et al. (2019) demonstrated how this strategy could benefit women with or at risk of breast cancer. The results of several studies support this standard of care, which increased its reliability.
Conclusion
The Women’s Health Initiative (WHI) significantly contributed to the medical research of conditions prevalent in postmenopausal women, focusing the attention on preventive care and management. However, its findings regarding the role of the low-fat diet in breast cancer were not entirely accurate. Later studies revealed that dietary changes could benefit women with or at risk of breast cancer, decreasing the rates of mortality as well. Therefore, it is be posed that the current standard of care, a recommendation for a low-fat diet that is rich in plant-based carbohydrates, should be used in clinical practice.
References
Chlebowski, R. T., Aragaki, A. K., Anderson, G. L., Simon, M. S., Manson, J. E., Neuhouser, M. L.,… Prentice, R. L. (2018). Association of low-fat dietary pattern with breast cancer overall survival: A secondary analysis of the Women’s Health Initiative randomized clinical trial. JAMA Oncology, 4(10), e181212-e181212.
Chlebowski, R. T., Aragaki, A. K., Anderson, G. L., Thomson, C. A., Manson, J. E., Simon, M. S.,… Prentice, R. L. (2017). Low-fat dietary pattern and breast cancer mortality in the Women’s Health Initiative randomized controlled trial. Journal of Clinical Oncology, 35(25), 2919-2926.
National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. (2019). Women’s Health Initiative (WHI). Web.
Prentice, R. L., Aragaki, A. K., Howard, B. V., Chlebowski, R. T., Thomson, C. A., Van Horn, L.,… Rossouw, J. E. (2019). Low-fat dietary pattern among postmenopausal women influences long-term cancer, cardiovascular disease, and diabetes outcomes. The Journal of Nutrition, 149(9), 1565-1574.
Senkus, E., Kyriakides, S., Ohno, S., Penault-Llorca, F., Poortmans, P., Rutgers, E.,… Cardoso, F. (2015). Primary breast cancer: ESMO Clinical Practice Guidelines for diagnosis, treatment and follow-up. Annals of Oncology, 26(Suppl_5), v8-v30.
Tharpe, N. L., Farley, C., & Jordan, R. G. (2017). Clinical practice guidelines for midwifery & women’s health (5th ed.). Burlington, MA: Jones & Bartlett Publishers.
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