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A cohort study of smoking, alcohol consumption, and dietary factors for pancreatic cancer (United States)

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Risk factors for pancreatic cancer were evaluated in a cohort study of 17,633 White men in the United States who responded to a mailed questionnaire in 1966 and were followed-up through 1986 for mortality. Cigarette smoking and alcohol consumption were found to be important risk factors for pancreatic cancer. Risks increased significantly with number of cigarettes smoked, reaching fourfold for smokers of 25 or more cigarettes per day relative to nonsmokers. Alcohol intake also was related significantly to risk, with consumers of 10 or more drinks per month having three times the risk of nondrinkers, but dose-response trends among drinkers were not smooth. Coffee consumption was unrelated to risk. Dietaryanalyses revealed a rising rate of pancreatic cancer mortality with increasing consumption of meat after adjustment for other risk factors. Men in the highest quartile of meat intake had about three times the risk of those in the lowest quartile. No consistent association, however, was observed for consumption of fruits, vegetables, or grains. This study confirms cigarette smoking as an important risk factor for pancreatic cancer, and provides evidence that elevated intake of alcohol and meat may increase the risk of this fatal malignancy.

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Authors
  1. Wei Zheng
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  2. Joseph K. McLaughlin
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  3. Gloria Gridley
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  4. Erik Bjelke
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  5. Leonard M. Schuman
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  6. Debra T. Silverman
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  7. Sholom Wacholder
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  8. Harvey T. Co-Chien
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  9. William J. Blot
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  10. Joseph F. Fraumeni Jr.
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Additional information

Drs Zheng (at the time of this study), McLaughlin, Gridley, Silverman, Wacholder, Blot, and Fraumeni Jr. are with the Epidemiology and Biostatistics Program, National Cancer Institute, Bethesda, MD, USA. Dr Zheng is currently with the School of Public Health, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA, as is Dr Schuman. Dr Bjelke is with the Center for Epidemiologic Research, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway. Mr Co-Chien is with Westat, Inc., Rockville, MD, USA. Address correspondence to Dr McLaughlin, Biostatistics Branch, National Cancer Institute, 6130 Executive Blvd., Room 415, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA.

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Zheng, W., McLaughlin, J.K., Gridley, G. et al. A cohort study of smoking, alcohol consumption, and dietary factors for pancreatic cancer (United States). Cancer Causes Control 4, 477–482 (1993). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00050867

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00050867

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