Hot beverages and oesophageal cancer in southern brazil: A case‐control study

Abstract

There is a cluster of high-incidence areas of oesophageal cancer in south-eastern South America, including Southern Brazil, Uruguay and parts of Argentina. The present case-control study investigated the hypothesis that this may be due to the drinking of maté, a traditional beverage drunk at a very high temperature, and also studied the role of other known risk factors such as alcohol and tobacco. Cases (171) and age- and sex-matched controls (342) were recruited from hospitals in the State of Rio Grande do Sul in Southern Brazil. The crude odds ratio for daily maté drinkers was 1.92 relative to those drinking less frequently than daily (p = 0.006). Other risk factors included the drinking of cachaça (a sugar cane spirit), smoking, rural residence, low fruit consumption and high intake of meats. After adjustment for these variables through conditional logistic regression, the odds ratio associated with daily maté drinking was reduced to 1.47 (90% CI = 0.87-2.50). Although the study failed to provide evidence of a strong association between maté and oesophageal cancer, the cluster of high rates could be explained by relative risks of the magnitude observed. This is due to the fact that approximately 70% of adult males and 50% of females are daily drinkers. In addition, this study revealed that alcohol, tobacco smoking and rural residence are the main risk factors for oesophageal cancer in this population and the fruit consumption confers some degree of protection.

Food groups and risk of squamous cell carcinoma of the oesophagus: a case–control study in Uruguay

“…Previous studies on foods and risk of squamous cell oesophageal cancer (Victora et al, 1987;Brown et al, 1998;Bosetti et al, 2000;Castellsagué et al, 2000) displayed stronger effects of fruits compared with vegetables. It is possible that cooked vegetables are not associated with squamous cell of the oesophagus due to temperature of the water.…”

“…Several studies on oesophageal cancer reported a final model including nondietary and dietary factors (Victora et al, 1987;Castelletto et al, 1994;Launoy et al, 1998;Cheng et al, 2000;Sharp et al, 2001). In our final model, which excluded nondietary factors, citrus fruits were the more significant and stronger term (P-value for trend o0.001), followed by stewed meat (P-value ¼ 0.007) and Foods and squamous cell oesophageal cancer E De Stefani et al fresh vegetables (P-value ¼ 0.009).…”

“…Even in Western countries, diet could play a major role Day, 1996, Launoy et al, 1998). South American countries display high rates of oesophageal cancer, and six case -control studies (Victora et al, 1987;De Stefani et al, 1990, 1991Castelletto et al, 1994;Rolón et al, 1995;Castellsagué et al, 2000) suggested that hot-maté drinking could be a risk factor for this malignancy. In these studies, tobacco smoking, alcohol drinking and diet also played an important role.…”

Fatores de risco para o câncer de esôfago: estudo caso-controle em área metropolitana da região Sudeste do Brasil

“…A evidente relação dose-resposta para os diferentes níveis de exposição ao fumo e à bebida fortalece a hipótese de que esses fatores têm importante papel na etiologia dessa doença. Achados semelhantes foram encontrados por outros pesquisadores 1,16,23,24,27,32,34 . Tuyns 30 (1990) destaca que o álcool é um dos poucos exemplos de substâncias químicas que parecem estar claramente envolvidas em certos tipos de câncer em humanos, especialmente os de boca, laringe, hipofaringe e esôfago, sem ter sido possível demonstrar esse fato em estudos experimentais.…”

“…O papel de diferentes fatores tem sido estudado: a influência de fatores genéticos, condições anormais do esôfago, hábitos tais como beber, fumar e mascar, consumo de alimentos em temperaturas extremas, dietas, condição socioeconômica e fatores ocupacionais, além do efeito de radiações ionizantes, da composição do solo, do clima e da vegetação. As evidências apontam para uma doença que é característica de locais com precárias condições socioeconômicas e dieta deficiente e que tanto o álcool como o fumo têm papel importante no aparecimento do tumor em várias partes do mundo 5,12,15,21,25,29,32,33 .…”