Research paper
Antioxidant intake and pancreatic cancer risk
Study answer
What this study found
Dietary selenium intake was inversely associated with pancreatic cancer risk (medium vs low intake HR 0.58; 95% CI 0.35-0.94; high vs low intake HR 0.44; 95% CI 0.23-0.85; Ptrend = 0.01). When dietary and supplement exposures were combined, the association was no longer statistically significant. Supplement selenium (mainly from multivitamins) showed no clear protective effect. No meaningful associations for other antioxidants. In sum, dietary selenium may reduce pancreatic cancer risk; selenium supplementation does not provide additional benefit and may attenuate the dietary association;…
- Study & population
- Population: 77,446 men and women aged 50-76 years in western Washington; baseline questionnaire 2000-2002; prospective population-based cohort (VITAL) designed to investigate supplement use and cancer risk; outcome: incident pancreatic cancer; exposures: dietary antioxidant intake (FFQ) and 10-year supplement use; analysis: Cox proportional hazards models…
- Key limitation
- Recall and reporting bias from self-reported dietary and supplement data; nondifferential measurement error in selenium content of foods due to soil variation; large number of exposures raises risk of chance findings; possible residual confounding by socioeconomic status; results may not generalize beyond this…
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Open PDFOriginal abstract
Oxidative stress causes damage to many components of human cells (ie, proteins, lipids, and DNA) and is involved in carcinogenesis. Nutrients with antioxidant properties may protect against oxidative stress. In this study, the authors examined the in…