High meat intake ups risk of lung cancer

A diet with increased consumption of fruits, vegetables, breakfast cereals, and dietary fibre, as well as low intake of red and processed meat, appears to reduce the risk of lung cancer, suggests a study.

A team of investigators assessed which dietary factors were associated with the risk of incident lung cancer in 416,588 participants (54 percent women) from the UK Biobank. They identified three main dietary patterns based on baseline data from food frequency questionnaires by using principal component analysis. The association of individual food groups and dietary patterns with lung cancer risk was examined using Cox proportional hazards models.

A total of 1,782 incident lung cancer cases were recorded during a median follow-up of 7.13 years. High consumption of red meat (hazard ratio [HR], 1.36 per 50 g/d, 95 percent confidence interval [CI], 1.13–1.65) and processed meat (HR, 1.30 per 25 g/d, 95 percent CI, 1.10–1.53) correlated with a higher risk of lung cancer.

On the other hand, the risk of lung cancer was inversely associated with intake of fruits (HR, 0.90 per 100 g/d, 95 percent CI, 0.84–0.95), vegetables, (HR, 0.89 per 100 g/d, 95 percent CI, 0.81–0.99), breakfast cereals (HR, 0.81 per 50 g/d, 95 percent CI, 0.74–0.89), and dietary fibre (HR, 0.76 per 5 g/d, 95 percent CI, 0.69–0.84).

Finally, the dietary pattern analysis revealed that high adherence to the Prudent pattern (Q4 vs Q1: HR, 0.84, 95 percent CI, 0.73–0.96) was associated with a lower lung cancer risk, but the Western pattern (Q4 vs Q1: HR, 1.27, 95 percent CI, 1.11–1.46) correlated with a higher risk.