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Urinary polyphenols and breast cancer risk: results from the Shanghai Women’s Health Study

  • Epidemiology
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An Erratum to this article was published on 25 October 2009

Abstract

Polyphenols, the most abundant dietary antioxidants, also possess many other anticarcinogenic activities. Urinary metabolites of polyphenols could complement dietary assessment of the bioavailability of these nutrients. We conducted a study of 353 incident breast cancer cases and 701 individually matched controls nested within the Shanghai Women’s Health Study cohort of women aged 40–70 years at baseline. Liquid chromatography photo-diode array electrospray mass spectrometry was used to measure tea polyphenols (epicatechin, epigallocatechin, and their metabolites) and flavonols (e.g., quercetin and kaempferol). Multivariate conditional logistic regression analyses were used to assess associations between breast cancer risk and urinary excretion rates of polyphenols. Urinary excretion of tea polyphenols increased with increasing tea leaves consumed among controls, but not among breast cancer cases. Compared with cases, controls had higher levels of urinary total polyphenols and tea polyphenols, particularly epicatechin. In contrast, we did not find any dose–response relationship between urinary polyphenols and breast cancer risk. Urinary excretion of epicatechin was inversely associated with breast cancer risk [odds ratio (OR) and 95% confidence interval (CI) of 0.59 (0.39–0.88) for the intermediate tertile]. In spline regression, we found an overall dose–response relationship between epicatechin level and risk of breast cancer, although it was not apparent in low and middle urinary excretion range. In conclusion, high epicatechin may be related to a reduced risk of breast cancer. Further studies are warranted to confirm our findings.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the study participants. The authors also thank Laurie Custer for the skillful performance of LC/MS assays. We acknowledge the support by NIH grant S10 RR020890-01. Sources of support: This study was supported by USPHS grant R01CA106591 as well as USPHS grant R01CA70867 and NIH intramural program (N02 CP1101066) for the parent study.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Medicine, Vanderbilt Epidemiology Center, Institute for Medicine and Public Health, Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center, Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, Sixth Floor, Suite 600, 2525 West End Avenue, Nashville, TN, 37203-1738, USA

    Jianfeng Luo, Xiao-Ou Shu, Gong Yang, Qiuyin Cai, Hui Cai, Martha J. Shrubsole, Wei Zheng & Qi Dai

  2. Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics, National Cancer Institute, NIH, Department of Health and Human Services, Bethesda, MD, USA

    Wong-Ho Chow & Nathaniel Rothman

  3. Department of Epidemiology, Shanghai Cancer Institute, Shanghai, China

    Yu-Tang Gao & Honglan Li

  4. Cancer Research Center of Hawaii, University of Hawaii, 1236 Lauhala Street, Honolulu, HI, 96813, USA

    Adrian A. Franke

  5. Department of Health Statistics and Social Medicine, School of Public Health, Fudan University, 200032, Shanghai, China

    Jianfeng Luo

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  1. Jianfeng Luo
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  2. Yu-Tang Gao
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  13. Qi Dai
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Correspondence to Qi Dai.

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An erratum to this article can be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10549-009-0599-3

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Luo, J., Gao, YT., Chow, WH. et al. Urinary polyphenols and breast cancer risk: results from the Shanghai Women’s Health Study. Breast Cancer Res Treat 120, 693–702 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10549-009-0487-x

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