Intake of foods and nutrients and cancer of the exocrine pancreas: A population‐based case‐control study in the Netherlands

Abstract

During 1984-88 a population-based case-control study was carried out in the Netherlands in collaboration with the International Agency for Research on Cancer in order to investigate the role of diet in exocrine pancreatic carcinoma. A semi-quantitative food-frequency questionnaire was used to comprehensively assess usual diet about 1 year prior to diagnosis of 164 cases or interview of 480 controls. More than half of the cases were directly interviewed. After controlling for age, gender, response status, life-time cigarette consumption and dietary intake of total energy, monotonic, significantly inverse dose-response effects with estimates of daily consumption of vegetables were found. The significant inverse effect of total cooked vegetables was primarily concentrated in cruciferous vegetables. Consumption of fresh vegetables was also significantly and inversely related to risk. A monotonic, positive dose-response gradient was seen for the consumption of eggs, while consumption of fish was significantly related to risk as well. Among direct respondents, significantly inverse relationships were found for the consumption of legumes, tomatoes, cheese and fermented milk products. Inverse associations with consumption of (subgroups of) fruits were observed in women only. The monotonic, significantly inverse relationship for consumption of low-fibre vegetables and the somewhat weaker, inverse association for high-fibre vegetables in directly interviewed subjects only, may point to protective agents other than vegetable fibre. Although intake of dietary fibre and beta-carotene were both inversely related to risk, simultaneous estimation suggested that beta-carotene or other as yet unknown correlated constituents, rather than dietary fibre, might explain the inverse relationships. A significant protective effect of vitamin C was demonstrated in women but not in men. Our study suggests that, independent of smoking and dietary intake of total energy, low consumption of specific vegetables and possibly fermented milk products and high consumption of eggs and fish may have influenced the development of exocrine pancreatic cancer.

Dietary Intake of Heterocyclic Amines and Benzo(a)Pyrene: Associations with Pancreatic Cancer

“…Positive associations have been reported for the following: daily meat consumption (29); total meat, liver, ham, and sausages (30); red meat and salted/ smoked meat (31); beef and bacon (32); pork and beef (33,34); pork and fish, but not beef (35); beef, chicken, and pork (36), and fat (37)(38)(39). Null, inverse, and inconsistent associations have also been reported (40)(41)(42)(43)(44)(45)(46)(47).…”

Specific fatty acid intake and the risk of pancreatic cancer in Canada

“…Our findings are in agreement with those of five previous case -control studies that reported statistically significant or borderline decreased risks of pancreatic cancer with higher saturated fat intake, with a relative risk of 0.3 (95% CI 0.1 -0.8), 0.3 (95% CI 0.1 -1.0), 0.2 (95% CI 0.1 -0.2), and 0.9 (P-trend ¼ 0.028; for men) for intakes in the highest as compared to the lowest quartiles (Baghurst et al, 1991;Bueno de Mesquita et al, 1991;Zatonski et al, 1991;Silverman et al, 1998), respectively. A large collaborative population-based case -control of pancreatic cancer comprising 802 cases from five countries in the Surveillance of Environmental Aspects Related to Cancers in Humans (SEARCH) Study found a nonsignificant reduced risk, with an overall OR of 0.8 (95% CI 0.6 -1.2) for the highest quartile of saturated fat intake (Howe et al, 1992), with significant inverse associations reported in two study centres (Howe and Burch, 1996).…”

Meat and Meat-Mutagen Intake and Pancreatic Cancer Risk in the NIH-AARP Cohort

“…The association between meat intake and pancreatic cancer has been examined in both case control and cohort (23)(24)(25)(26)(27)(28)(29)(30)(31)(32) studies with positive (2-7, 9-12, 22-27), inverse (13)(14)(15)28), and null (4, 5, 8, 14-21, 29, 32) associations reported for both study designs. The inconsistent results among case-control studies may partly be due to retrospective ascertainment of diet, which, given the rapid fatality of pancreatic cancer, may be fraught with biases, such as recall and proxy, and reverse causation.…”