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Nutrient-based dietary patterns and prostate cancer risk: a case–control study from Italy

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Abstract

Purpose

The role of various foods and nutrients, and their combinations, on prostate cancer risk remains largely undefined. We addressed therefore the issue of complex dietary patterns.

Methods

We analyzed data from an Italian case–control study, including 1,294 men with prostate cancer and 1,451 hospital controls. We carried out an exploratory principal component factor analysis on 28 selected nutrients in order to identify dietary patterns. We estimated odds ratios (ORs) and corresponding confidence intervals (CIs) using logistic regression models on quintiles of factor scores, adjusting for major confounding variables.

Results

We identified five dietary patterns, labeled “Animal Products,” “Vitamins and Fiber,” “Starch-rich,” “Vegetable Unsaturated Fatty Acids (VUFA),” and “Animal Unsaturated Fatty Acids (AUFA).” We found positive associations between prostate cancer and “Animal Products” (OR for the highest vs. the lowest score quintile: 1.51, 95 % CI 1.16–1.96), “Starch-rich” (OR 1.50, 95 % CI 1.16 1.93), and “AUFA” (OR 1.32, 95 % CI 1.02–1.70) patterns. No significant associations emerged with “Vitamins and Fiber” (OR 0.93) and “VUFA” (OR 1.16) patterns.

Conclusions

Our findings suggest that a diet rich in animal products, including several types of meat and dairy products, as well as of (refined) cereals and sugars has an unfavorable role on prostate cancer.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the Italian Association for Cancer Research (AIRC Grant Numbers 10068 and 10415) and by the Italian Ministry of University, Education and Research (PRIN 2009 X8YCBN). F.B. was supported by a fellowship of the “Fondazione Umberto Veronesi.”

Conflict of interest

The opinions expressed in this manuscript are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the organization that they work for. The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Epidemiology, IRCCS-Istituto di Ricerche Farmacologiche “Mario Negri”, Via Giuseppe La Masa 19, 20156, Milan, Italy

    Valentina Rosato, Francesca Bravi, Cristina Bosetti, Paola Bertuccio & Carlo La Vecchia

  2. Department of Clinical Sciences and Community Health, Università degli Studi di Milano, Via Augusto Vanzetti 5, 20133, Milan, Italy

    Valeria Edefonti, Francesca Bravi, Monica Ferraroni, Carlo La Vecchia & Adriano Decarli

  3. Unit of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Centro di Riferimento Oncologico, IRCCS, Via Franco Gallini, 2, 33081, Aviano, Italy

    Renato Talamini & Luigino Dal Maso

  4. Unit of Epidemiology, Istituto Tumori “Fondazione Pascale”, Via Mariano Semmola, 80131, Naples, Italy

    Maurizio Montella

  5. Unity of Medical Statistics, Biometry and Bioinformatics, Fondazione IRCCS Istituto Nazionale Tumori, Via Augusto Vanzetti 5, 20133, Milan, Italy

    Adriano Decarli

Authors
  1. Valentina Rosato
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  2. Valeria Edefonti
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  9. Monica Ferraroni
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  10. Carlo La Vecchia
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  11. Adriano Decarli
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Carlo La Vecchia.

Appendix

Appendix

See Table 5.

Table 5 Factorability of the correlation matrix of the original nutrients and individual measures of sampling adequacy. Italy, 1991–2002
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Rosato, V., Edefonti, V., Bravi, F. et al. Nutrient-based dietary patterns and prostate cancer risk: a case–control study from Italy. Cancer Causes Control 25, 525–532 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10552-014-0356-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10552-014-0356-8

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