New research suggests that reducing calorie intake helps in restricting certain effects of breast cancer in women. Experiments conducted on mice with triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) revealed that restricting the amount and types of food they were given, significantly reduced the spread of cancer cells, the Medical Daily reported.

The study was conducted by the department of Radiation Oncology at Thomas Jefferson University and published in Breast Cancer Research and Treatment. TNBC is quite aggressive and difficult to treat.

Most women gain weight after chemotherapy and steroid treatments. The weight may increase further due to hormone therapy. The hormonal shift due to the treatments alters the metabolism, causing the patient to gain up to 10 lbs. in their first year of treatment. Recent research has suggested that cancer treatments may not have a desirable outcome in patients with excess weight, and weight gain during treatment has been known to exacerbate cancer’s spread.

The researchers found that reducing calorie intake while giving radiation therapy to mice had an adverse effect on the production of microRNAs, which in turn resulted increases in the production of proteins necessary for maintaining the extracellular matrix.

"A strong matrix creates a sort of cage around the tumor, making it more difficult for cancer cells to escape and spread to new sites in the body," senior author and associate professor, Dr. Nicole Simone, said in a press release.

Simone is currently conducting human trials on participants who are part of the CaReFOR (Calorie Restriction for Oncology Research) trial. In a first of its kind approach, women undergoing breast cancer treatment are also getting nutritional advice for weight-loss in order to make their therapies more effective.