A study of healthy eating and exercise in women who have an increased risk of breast cancer (The Family History Lifestyle Study)

Cancer type:

Breast cancer

Status:

Results

Phase:

Phase 3

This study compared 3 different weight loss programmes for women with an increased risk of developing breast cancer.

The study was open to women who:

had a family history of breast cancer
were attending a family history clinic

It was open for people to join between 2017 and 2019. The team reported the results in 2023.

More about this trial

Some people have a higher risk of developing breast cancer than the general population because other members of their family have had certain cancers. This is called a family history of cancer.

You usually attend a clinic if you have a family history of breast cancer. At the clinic, the staff work out your individual risk of developing cancer. You then have regular mammograms Open a glossary item to monitor any changes in your breasts.

Being overweight and not having a healthy lifestyle can increase the risk of breast cancer and other diseases such as heart disease. We know from research that losing a bit of weight and keeping it off is linked to a lower risk of developing breast cancer. But at the time of the study, family history breast cancer clinics didn’t offer routine weight loss or lifestyle services.

In this study, researchers wanted to look at 3 weight loss programmes for women attending these clinics. Women had 1 of the following:

detailed written information on healthy eating and physical activity. This was called the written advice group.
detailed written information on healthy eating and physical activity and support via the phone and email from a dietician with a focus on preventing breast cancer. This was called the breast cancer prevention group.
detailed written information on healthy eating and physical activity and support via the phone and email from a dietician with a focus on preventing multiple medical conditions linked to being overweight. This was called the multiple disease prevention group.

The main aims of the study were to find out:

if women were willing to take part in a remote weight loss programme
how well the different programmes worked to help women lose weight

Summary of results

This study showed that having remote support from a dietician helped women lose more weight than just written advice. The researchers also found that including information about other medical conditions did not help women lose more weight than information about breast cancer alone.

Study design
210 women took part. Everyone taking part was either at moderate or high risk of having breast cancer in their lifetime. All the women were overweight or obese Open a glossary item .

This was a randomised study.

37 women had written information on healthy eating and physical activity alone
86 women had written advice and remote support with the aim to prevent breast cancer
87 women had written advice and remote support with the aim to prevent breast cancer, cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes

The written diet advice was the same for all the groups. They also received a booklet which gave the benefits of physical activity and a home-based exercise programme.

Everyone taking part was given their personalised risk of breast cancer.

The multiple disease prevention group had an NHS Health Check at the start of the study. This gave the women taking part information on:

their average blood sugar level over the previous 3 months (HbA1c)
their cholesterol level
their personal risk of developing heart disease or type 2 diabetes

The breast cancer prevention group and the multiple disease prevention group had remote support from a dietician. Everyone in these groups also had access to a website where they were able to:

record their weight, food intake and physical activity
compare their progress with an average weight loss graph for their group

They could also access a number of other ways of getting support from the website.

Women in the breast cancer prevention group and the multiple disease prevention group had personal feedback from their dietician for the first 6 months. This was either over the phone or by email. They got automated monthly emails in response to their use of the website for the next 6 months.

Results
The team looked at how much weight people in each group lost after 6 and 12 months. After 12 months, they found that it was an average of:

3.6kg (3.3%) for those in the written advice group
6.2kg (6.3%) for those in the breast cancer prevention group
5.7kg (6.0%) for those in the multiple disease prevention group

Side effects
The researchers looked at whether there were any side effects of taking part in the study. Two people had to go into hospital, one with a migraine, and one with a leg fracture. These were not due to the study.

Conclusion
The researchers concluded that it is possible to deliver web and phone weight loss advice. They found the average weight loss was higher in the breast cancer prevention group and the multiple disease prevention group compared to the written advice group. There was no difference between the breast cancer and multiple disease prevention groups.

The researchers would like to do a bigger trial at more family history clinics in the UK. This is to look into breast cancer specific remote support further.

More detailed information
There is more information about this research in the reference below.

Please note, the information we link to here is not in plain English. It has been written for healthcare professionals and researchers.

Randomised controlled trial of breast cancer and multiple disease prevention weight loss programmes vs written advice amongst women attending a breast cancer family history clinic
M Harvie and others
British Journal of Cancer, 2023. Volume 128, pages 1690 – 1700.

Where this information comes from
We have based this summary on the information in the article above. This has been reviewed by independent specialists (peer reviewed Open a glossary item ) and published in a medical journal. We have not analysed the data ourselves. As far as we are aware, the link we list above is active and the article is free and available to view.