Journal article
Lifelong vegetarianism and breast cancer risk: a large multicentre case control study in India
- Abstract:
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Background
The lower incidence of breast cancer in Asian populations where the intake of animal products is lower than that of Western populations has led some to suggest that a vegetarian diet might reduce breast cancer risk.
Methods
Between 2011 and 2014 we conducted a multicentre hospital based case-control study in eight cancer centres in India. Eligible cases were women aged 30-70 years, with newly diagnosed invasive breast cancer (ICD10 C50). Controls were frequency matched to the cases by age and region of residence and chosen from the accompanying attendants of the patients with cancer or those patients in the general hospital without cancer. Information about dietary, lifestyle, reproductive and socio-demographic factors were collected using an interviewer administered structured questionnaire. Multivariate logistic regression models were used to estimate the odds ratio (OR) and 95% confidence intervals for the risk of breast cancer in relation to lifelong vegetarianism, adjusting for known risk factors for the disease.
Results
The study included 2101 cases and 2255 controls. The mean age at recruitment was similar in cases (49.7 years (SE 9.7)) and controls (49.8 years (SE 9.1)). About a quarter of the population were lifelong vegetarians and the rates varied significantly by region. On multivariate analysis, with adjustment for known risk factors for the disease, the risk of breast cancer was not decreased in lifelong vegetarians (OR 1.09 (95% CI 0.93-1.29)).
Conclusions
Lifelong exposure to a vegetarian diet appears to have little, if any effect on the risk of breast cancer.
- Publication status:
- Published
- Peer review status:
- Peer reviewed
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(Preview, Version of record, pdf, 462.9KB, Terms of use)
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- Publisher copy:
- 10.1186/s12905-016-0357-8
Authors
- Publisher:
- BioMed Central
- Journal:
- BMC Women's Health More from this journal
- Volume:
- 17
- Pages:
- 6
- Publication date:
- 2017-01-01
- Acceptance date:
- 2016-12-13
- DOI:
- ISSN:
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1472-6874
- Keywords:
- Pubs id:
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pubs:667929
- UUID:
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uuid:0e514476-47cf-4522-8088-9bf057d97f5d
- Local pid:
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pubs:667929
- Source identifiers:
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667929
- Deposit date:
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2017-01-03
Terms of use
- Copyright holder:
- Barnes et al
- Copyright date:
- 2017
- Notes:
- © The Author(s). 2017 Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
- Licence:
- CC Attribution (CC BY)
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