Nutritional Epidemiology of Breast Cancer

Since several decades ago, breast cancer has been recognized as the most frequent
malignant tumour among women in the world. Although it is an extremely known
and frequent health problem in developed societies it has been recently emerging as
a new situation in developing countries. These latter have witnessed a sustained
translocation of cervical cancer moving downward from the fi rst place in their
cancer rankings while breast cancer aroused fi rmly to the top. Such changes have
usually taken place together with the positive evolution of certain indicators of
human development. Breast cancer is a polygenic and multifactorial disease for
which estrogens have been recognized as the main risk factor, and for which lifestyle
plays a key role.