Diet Quality Linked to Colorectal Cancer Risk

High-quality diets are associated with a lower risk for developing colorectal cancer, according to the findings of a recent study.

In their study, the researchers analyzed data from the Multiethnic Cohort study, which included a total of 190,949 participants from 45 to 75 years of age who identified as either African American, Native Hawaiian, Japanese American, Latino or white. The scores from the Healthy Eating Index 2010 (HEI-2010), the Alternative Health Eating Index 2010 (AHEI-2010), the alternate Mediterranean diet score (aMED), and the Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) were used to assess diet quality.
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During the mean 16 years of follow-up, 4770 invasive colorectal cancer cases were identified.

High scores on all 4 diet quality indexes (DQI) were associated with a decreased risk of developing colorectal cancer. However, adjustments for covariates showed this association was not significant for scores from the AHEI-2010 and aMED for women.

In comparisons between participants with the highest quality diet and those with the lowest quality diet, the hazard ratios [HR] for the HEI-2010 score was 0.69 for men and 0.82 for women, 0.75 for men and 0.90 for women for the AHEI-2010 score, 0.84 for men and 0.96 for women for the aMED score, and 0.75 for men and 0.86 for women for DASH. These associations were limited to the left colon and rectum, and were not as strong for African American individuals compared with the other 4 racial/ethnic groups.

“Based on an analysis of data from the Multiethnic Cohort Study, high-quality diets are associated with a lower risk of colorectal cancer in most racial/ethnic subgroups,” the researchers concluded.

—Melissa Weiss

Reference:

Park SY, Boushey CJ, Wilkens LR, Haiman CA, Le Marchand L. High-quality diets associate with reduced risk of colorectal cancer: analyses of diet quality indexes in the multiethnic cohort. Gastroenterology. 2017: 153(2): 386-394. https://dx.doi.org/10.1053/j.gastro.2017.04.004.