Animal foods and postmenopausal breast cancer risk: a prospective cohort study

Abstract

The role of diet on breast cancer risk is not well elucidated but animal food sources may play a role through, for example, the pathway of the insulin-like growth factor 1 system or cholesterol metabolism. The aim of this study was to evaluate the association between animal foods and the risk of postmenopausal breast cancer. This study was embedded in the Rotterdam Study, a population-based prospective cohort study of subjects aged 55 years and over (61 % female). Dietary intake of different animal foods was assessed at baseline using a validated FFQ and adjusted for energy intake using the residual method. We performed Cox proportional hazards modelling to analyse the association between the intake of the different food sources and breast cancer risk after adjustment for socio-demographic, lifestyle and metabolic factors. During a median follow-up of 17 years, we identified 199 cases of breast cancer (6·2 %) among 3209 women. After adjustment for multiple confounders, no consistent association was found between the intake of red meat intake, poultry, fish or dairy products and breast cancer risk. However, we found that egg intake was significantly associated with a higher risk of breast cancer (hazard ratioQ4 v. Q1: 1·83; 95 % CI 1·20, 2·79; Ptrend=0·01). In conclusion, this study found that dietary egg intake but no other animal foods was associated with a higher risk of postmenopausal breast cancer. Further research on the potential mechanisms underlying this association is warranted.

Objectives, design and main findings until 2020 from the Rotterdam Study

“…In the Consortium on Health and Ageing (CHANCES), it was described that smoking, considerably advances, and cessation delays, the prognosis of CRC [37], but also of other cancers [38]. In addition, we found that dietary egg intake was associated with a higher risk of postmenopausal breast cancer [33] whereas a higher dietary zinc and iron intake were associated with a reduced risk of lung cancer [36]. With regard to laboratory assessments, we found that higher thyroid free T4 levels are significantly associated with an increased risk of any solid, lung, and breast cancer [45].…”

“…Furthermore, cancer may be a determinant or relevant co-factor in other RSstudies [32]. With regard to etiology, research has been done on diet [33][34][35][36] or lifestyle such as smoking [37,38] as a risk factor, and laboratory assessments, for example, inflammatory markers in association with cancer [31,[39][40][41]. Furthermore, the association between cognition and cancer was studied [42,43].…”

A Dose-response Meta-analysis of Egg Intake and Breast Cancer Risk

“…After careful reading and evaluation of the full text, the articles lacking relevant data, focused on different topics and meta-analyses were excluded. Therefore, 9 articles were finally included in this meta-analysis, 6 of which were casecontrol studies [8,10,[18][19][20][21]] and 3 of which were cohort studies [4,22,23] (see Figure 1).…”

Country-Level Relationships of the Human Intake of N and P, Animal and Vegetable Food, and Alcoholic Beverages with Cancer and Life Expectancy

“…Some studies, however, have not found relationships between animal foods and some other types of cancers such as ovarian cancer (e.g., Schulz et al, 2007 [ 19 ]). Other reports have found a positive association between egg intake and breast cancer in women older than 55 years [ 20 ] and between the total intake of proteins (regardless of source) and the risk of prostate cancer [ 21 ]. The relationship between the intake of aquatic animals and cancer risk is less clear.…”