Background:
The
Mediterranean Diet (MD) has been proposed as a means for cancer
prevention, but little evidence has been accrued regarding its potential to prevent
pancreatic
cancer.
We investigated the association between the adherence to the MD and pancreatic cancer
risk within the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC) cohort.
Methods
:
Over half a million participants from 10 European countries were followed-
up for
over
11 years, after which 865 newly diagnosed exocrine pancreatic cancer cases were identified.
Adherence to the MD was estimated through an adapted score without the
alcohol
component
(arMED)
to discount alcohol
-related harmful effects
. Cox proportional hazards regression
models
,
stratified by age, sex and center,
and adjusted for energy intake, body mass index (BMI)
,
smoking status, alcohol intake
and diabetes status at recruitment
, were used
to estimate hazard
ratio
s (HR
s) associated with pancreatic cancer
and
their
corresponding 95% confidence interval
s
16
(CI
s) .
Results:
Adherence to the arMED score
was not associated with risk of pancreatic cancer (HR
high
versus
low adherence = 0.99
; 95% CI: 0.77-
1.26, and HR per increments of 2 units in
adherence to
arMED
= 1.00; 95% CI: 0.94-
1.06).
There was no
convincing
evidence for
heterogeneity by smoking status
, BMI
, diabetes
or European region.
There was also no
evidence
of
significant associations
in analyses involving microscopically confirmed cases, plausible
reporters of energy intake
, or other definitions of the MD pattern.
Conclusion:
A high adherence to the MD is not associated with pancreatic cancer risk
in the
EPIC s
tudy.