Breast cancer and diet among the Japanese in Hawaii.

Eighty-six Japanese men out of 6860 male participants in a prospective study of cancer were married to women who had breast cancer. These 86 men were compared with the remaining men by dietary factors that were identified during two different time periods. Based on the assumption that there is a similarity between husbands and wives in their dietary patterns, it was noted that the spouses of women with breast cancer consumed more beef or meat, butter/margarine/cheese, corn, and wieners than the other men. Furthermore, the breast cancer spouses also consumed less Japanese foods than controls, even though there were minimal differences between the two groups in other Oriental practices. These results suggest that certain American foods are important in the search for possible dietary factors related to the occurrence of breast cancer in women.