Dietary patterns and risk of pancreatic cancer in a hospital-based case-control study
Abstract
Background. It is important to understand the association between diet and risk of pancreatic cancer in order to better understand the etiology of pancreatic cancer. Objectives. Describe the dietary patterns of cases of adenocarcinoma of the pancreas and non-cancer controls and evaluate the odds of having a healthy eating pattern among cases and non-cancer controls. Design and Methods. An ongoing hospital-based case-control study was conducted in Houston, Texas from 2000-2008 with 678 pancreatic adenocarcinoma cases and 724 controls. Participants completed a food frequency questionnaire and a risk factor questionnaire. Dietary patterns were derived by principal component analysis and associations between dietary patterns and pancreatic cancer risk were assessed using unconditional logistic regression. Results. Two dietary patterns were derived: fruit-vegetable and high fat-meat. There were no statistically significant associations between the fruit-vegetable pattern and pancreatic cancer. An inverse association was seen between the high fat-meat pattern and pancreatic cancer risk when comparing those in the upper intake quintile to those scoring in the lowest quintile after adjusting for demographic and risk factor variables (OR=0.67, p=0.03). In sex-stratified analysis adjusted for demographic and risk factor variables, females scoring in the upper intake quintile of the fruit-vegetable pattern had a 49% lower risk of pancreatic cancer compared to females scoring in the lowest quintile (OR=0.51, p=0.03). An inverse relationship was also seen for the high fat-meat pattern when comparing females in the upper intake quintile to females in the lowest quintile (OR=0.50, p=0.03). In males, neither dietary pattern was significantly associated with pancreatic cancer. Conclusions. The current findings for the fruit-vegetable pattern are similar to those of previous studies and support the hypothesis that there is an inverse association between a “healthy” diet (comprised of fruits, vegetables, and whole grains) and risk of having pancreatic cancer (in females only). However, the inverse relationship with the high fat-meat pattern and risk of pancreatic cancer is contrary to other results. Further research on dietary patters and pancreatic cancer risk may lead to better understanding of the etiologic cause of pancreatic cancer.
Subject Area
Nutrition|Oncology
Recommended Citation
Ziervogel, Jennifer, "Dietary patterns and risk of pancreatic cancer in a hospital-based case-control study" (2010). Texas Medical Center Dissertations (via ProQuest). AAI1479814.
https://digitalcommons.library.tmc.edu/dissertations/AAI1479814