Mediterranean Diet and Breast Cancer Risk
Federica Turati 1
, Greta Carioli 1, Francesca Bravi 1, Monica Ferraroni 1, Diego Serraino 2, Maurizio Montella 3, Attilio Giacosa 4, Federica Toffolutti 2, Eva Negri 5, Fabio Levi 6 and Carlo La Vecchia 1,*
, Greta Carioli 1, Francesca Bravi 1, Monica Ferraroni 1, Diego Serraino 2, Maurizio Montella 3, Attilio Giacosa 4, Federica Toffolutti 2, Eva Negri 5, Fabio Levi 6 and Carlo La Vecchia 1,*
1
Department of Clinical Sciences and Community Health, Università degli Studi di Milano, 20133 Milan, Italy
2
Unit of Cancer Epidemiology, CRO Aviano National Cancer Institute, IRCCS, 33080 Aviano, Italy
3
Epidemiology and Biostatistical Unit, Istituto Tumori “Fondazione Pascale IRCCS”, 80131 Naples, Italy
4
Department of Gastroenterology and Clinical Nutrition, Policlinico di Monza, 20900 Monza, Italy
5
Department of Biomedical and Clinical Sciences, Università degli Studi di Milano, 20157 Milan, Italy
6
Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine (IUMSP), Lausanne University Hospital, 1010 Lausanne, Switzerland
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Nutrients 2018, 10(3), 326; https://doi.org/10.3390/nu10030326
Received: 14 November 2017 / Revised: 9 January 2018 / Accepted: 27 January 2018 / Published: 8 March 2018
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Assessing the Mediterranean Diet in Public Health: Scoring Systems, Effects on Chronic Disease and Interventions)
Abstract
The Mediterranean diet has been related to a reduced risk of several common cancers but its role on breast cancer has not been quantified yet. We investigated the association between adherence to the Mediterranean diet and breast cancer risk by means of a hospital-based case-control study conducted in Italy and Switzerland. 3034 breast cancer cases and 3392 controls admitted to the same network of hospitals for acute, non-neoplastic and non-gynaecologic diseases were studied. Adherence to the Mediterranean diet was quantitatively measured through a Mediterranean Diet Score (MDS), summarizing the major characteristics of the Mediterranean dietary pattern and ranging from 0 (lowest adherence) to 9 (highest adherence). We estimated the odds ratios (ORs) of breast cancer for the MDS using multiple logistic regression models, adjusting for several covariates. Compared to a MDS of 0–3, the ORs for breast cancer were 0.86 (95% confidence interval, CI, 0.76–0.98) for a MDS of 4–5 and 0.82 (95% CI, 0.71–0.95) for a MDS of 6–9 (p for trend = 0.008). The exclusion of the ethanol component from the MDS did not materially modify the ORs (e.g., OR = 0.81, 95% CI, 0.70–0.95, for MDS ≥ 6). Results were similar in pre- and post-menopausal women. Adherence to the Mediterranean diet was associated with a reduced breast cancer risk. View Full-TextKeywords:
Mediterranean diet; breast cancer; prevention; case-control
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited (CC BY 4.0).
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Turati, F.; Carioli, G.; Bravi, F.; Ferraroni, M.; Serraino, D.; Montella, M.; Giacosa, A.; Toffolutti, F.; Negri, E.; Levi, F.; La Vecchia, C. Mediterranean Diet and Breast Cancer Risk. Nutrients 2018, 10, 326.
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