A Prospective Study of Meat and Fat Intake in Relation to Small Intestinal Cancer

Abstract

Diets high in red and processed meats are associated with carcinogenesis of the large intestine, but no prospective study has examined meat and fat intake in relation to cancer of the small intestine. We prospectively investigated meat and fat intakes, estimated from a food frequency questionnaire, in relation to small intestinal cancer among half a million men and women enrolled in the NIH-AARP Diet and Health Study. We used Cox proportional hazards regression to estimate hazard ratios (HR) and 95% confidence intervals (95% CI). During up to 8 years of follow-up, 60 adenocarcinomas and 80 carcinoid tumors of the small intestine were diagnosed. Despite slightly elevated HRs for red meat, there were no clear associations for red or processed meat intake and either adenocarcinoma or carcinoid tumors of the small intestine. In contrast, we noted a markedly elevated risk for carcinoid tumors of the small intestine with saturated fat intake in both the categorical (highest versus lowest tertile: HR, 3.18; 95% CI, 1.62-6.25) and continuous data (HR, 3.72; 95% CI, for each 10-g increase in intake per 1,000 kcal). Our findings suggest that the positive associations for meat intake reported in previous case-control studies may partly be explained by saturated fat intake. [Cancer Res 2008;68(22):9274-9]

Lifestyle factors and small intestine adenocarcinoma risk: A systematic review and meta-analysis

“…As shown in Figure 1, screening of the 2,319 papers identified in our search strategy resulted in nine publications [21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29] deemed eligible for inclusion in the review. The characteristics of these are summarised in Table 1 and consist of four studies from prospective cohorts or consortiums [21,23,24,28], two population-based case-control studies [25,29] and three hospital-based case-control studies [22,26,27].…”

“…The characteristics of these are summarised in Table 1 and consist of four studies from prospective cohorts or consortiums [21,23,24,28], two population-based case-control studies [25,29] and three hospital-based case-control studies [22,26,27]. These studies, of variable quality, originated from America, Europe and a large Asian cohort consortium (Table 1).…”

“…Five studies assessed the relationship between various dietary factors and SIA risk [23,24,[27][28][29]. Three publications [23,24,28] originated from the large American National Institutes of Health-AARP Diet and Health Study.…”

“…Three publications [23,24,28] originated from the large American National Institutes of Health-AARP Diet and Health Study. After adjustment for potential confounders outlined in Table 1, non-significant direct associations were observed between SIA risk and fat, processed and red meat intake [24] in that cohort.…”

Small Bowel Adenocarcinoma – Report of Two Cases and Review of Literature

“…However, saturated fat intake was associated with elevated risk of small bowel carcinoids [13]. Vegetable diet with high fiber has a protective effect [14].…”