Associations of dietary intake and supplement use with post-therapy cognitive recovery in breast cancer survivors

Zhezhou Huang, Yan Shi, Pingping Bao, Hui Cai, Zhen Hong, Ding Ding, James Jackson, Xiao-Ou Shu, Qi Dai

Cognitive impairment induced by cancer therapy is common and can be long lasting after completion of therapy. Little is known on factors that influence recovery from the impairment. We evaluated the associations of dietary intake and supplement use with post-therapy cognitive recovery in a large cohort of breast cancer survivors. This study included 1047 breast cancer patients aged 20-75 who were recruited to the Shanghai Breast Cancer Survival Study between 2002 and 2006 at approximately 6.5 months post-cancer diagnosis. Two cognitive assessments covering immediate memory, delayed memory, verbal fluency, and attention, were conducted at 18 and 36 months post-diagnosis. We used food frequency questionnaire to collect information on their dietary intake and supplement use between 18 and 36 months post-diagnosis. Linear regression models were used to examine the associations of dietary intake and supplement use with mean cognitive scores at 36 months post-diagnosis and with differences in cognitive scores between 18 and 36 months post-diagnosis. Higher vegetable, fruit and fish intake, supplementation with vitamin B and vitamin E, and tea drinking were associated with higher cognitive scores, while alcohol drinking was associated with lower cognitive scores at 36 months post-diagnosis. Vegetable intake was positively associated with improvement in verbal fluency, while tea drinking and fish oil supplementation were associated with greater improvements in delayed memory between 18 and 36 months post-diagnosis. Our results indicate that higher vegetable intake, tea drinking, and fish oil supplementation may help post-therapy cognitive recovery for cancer patients.