Meat and dairy consumption and subsequent risk of prostate cancer in a US cohort study

Abstract

Overall, consumption of processed meat, but not total meat or red meat, was associated with a possible increased risk of total prostate cancer in this prospective study. Higher intake of dairy foods but not calcium was positively associated with prostate cancer. Further investigation into the mechanisms by which processed meat and dairy consumption might increase the risk of prostate cancer is suggested.

Dairy Products, Calcium Intake, and Risk of Prostate Cancer in the Prostate, Lung, Colorectal, and Ovarian Cancer Screening Trial

“…Also, observations on high-fat dairy products may be limited in our study because men reported generally low intake of these foods. Our findings of an increased risk with higher calcium intake are consistent with several (11,12,(17)(18)(19)(20), but not all (13,(21)(22)(23)(24), existing studies. Of note, an increased risk of prostate cancer was noted among men with very high calcium intakes (i.e., >1,500 mg/d), which is also consistent with other studies (17)(18)(19).…”

“…Calcium, a major nutrient in dairy products, has also been associated with increased prostate cancer risk (11,12,(17)(18)(19)(20), although other studies do not support this association (13,(21)(22)(23)(24).…”

Animal foods, protein, calcium and prostate cancer risk: the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition

“…Our finding that total meat or red meat intake is not associated with prostate cancer risk is consistent with most previous prospective studies (Snowdon, 1988;Mills et al, 1989;Hsing et al, 1990;Chan et al, 2000;Allen et al, 2004;Cross et al, 2005;Rohrmann et al, 2007), although some found positive associations with red meat (Michaud et al, 2001), hamburgers (Veierod et al, 1997), beef (Le Marchand et al, 1994) or cooked processed meat for either total or advanced prostate cancer. For fish, our results, which are based on a wide range of intake, provide no evidence that intake is associated with risk, and is consistent with most previous studies (Severson et al, 1989;Hsing et al, 1990;Le Marchand et al, 1994;Gronberg et al, 1996;Schuurman et al, 1999), although some have reported a negative (Terry et al, 2001;Augustsson et al, 2003) or positive association (Mills et al, 1989;Allen et al, 2004).…”

“…However, few studies have reported on protein intake in relation to risk (Severson et al, 1989;Schuurman et al, 1999;Chan et al, 2000), and, to our knowledge, this is the first study to examine specifically the association of dairy protein in risk. An alternative hypothesis is that dairy products may increase prostate cancer risk via their high calcium content, and our finding of a positive association with calcium intake is consistent with some (Chan et al, 2001;Gao et al, 2005;Tseng et al, 2005;Giovannucci et al, 2006;Kesse et al, 2006;Ahn et al, 2007;Mitrou et al, 2007), but not all, prospective studies (Koh et al, 2006;Severi et al, 2006;Rohrmann et al, 2007). It has been suggested that a high calcium intake may increase risk by suppressing the synthesis of 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D, which has an antitumour effect on human prostatic cells in vitro (Giovannucci, 1998).…”

Intake of heterocyclic aromatic amines and the risk of prostate cancer in the EPIC-Heidelberg cohort

“…Some of them showed a positive association between meat consumption and prostate cancer, especially for well-done and red meat [7,8,9,10], but others reported no association [11,12,13]. The few studies with focus on HCA intake revealed inconsistent results; two studies reported no association [8,10], whereas one study indicated an increasing risk for intake of PhIP [9] and another one an increased risk for MeIQx and DiMeIQx [7].…”