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There’s now additional evidence that women who eat a diet high in fruits and vegetables – particularly cruciferous vegetables like broccoli, and yellow and orange vegetables – have a lower risk of breast cancer, say researchers at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston.

They analyzed information about diet from questionnaires submitted every four years by participants in the Nurses' Health Study (which involved 88,301 women and was begun in 1980) and the Nurses' Health Study II (which involved 93,844 women and started in 1991). They also examined data about known risk factors for breast cancer, including age, weight, smoking status, and family cancer history, from questionnaires completed by the study participants every two years.

Women who ate more than five and a half servings of fruits and vegetables daily had an 11 percent lower risk of developing breast cancer than women who ate two and half or fewer servings per day, with a serving defined as one cup of raw leafy vegetables, one piece of fruit, or a half cup of chopped or cooked vegetables or fruits. According to the researchers, a high intake of fruits and vegetables was particularly associated with reduced risk for aggressive breast cancers like ER-negative and HER2-positive tumors.