Adherence to healthy diet staves off risk of pancreatic cancer in Asians

People who eat well, as indicated by a high diet quality, are at lower risk of developing pancreatic cancer, according to a study from Singapore.

The prospective study used data from the Singapore Chinese Health Study and included 63,257 middle-aged or older Chinese men and women. Quality diet index (QDI) was assessed using the following: the Alternative Health Eating Index-2010 (AHEI-2010), the alternate Mediterranean Diet (aMED), the Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH), and the Heathy Diet Indicator (HDI).

There were 311 incident cases of pancreatic cancer recorded over 25 years of follow-up. The risk of incident pancreatic cancer was significantly lower among individuals with higher scores on AHEI-2010, aMED, and DASH (p_trend<0.05 for all).

Cox proportional hazard regression analysis showed that compared with the lowest quartile, the highest QDI quartile conferred about 35–43 percent lower risk of developing pancreatic cancer. The corresponding hazard ratios were 0.65 (95 percent confidence interval [CI], 0.46–0.90) with AHEI-2010, 0.57 (95 percent CI, 0.38–0.85) with aMED, and 0.66 (95 percent CI, 0.46–0.95) with DASH scores. These associations were more pronounced among men.

Overall, the association between QDI and pancreatic cancer risk was not significantly different in subgroups defined by levels of body mass index, history of diabetes, and smoking status.

The findings underscore the potential of dietary modification in the primary prevention of pancreatic cancer.