Abstract
It has been suggested that gene–environment interaction is related to the risk of cancer. To evaluate departure from multiplicative effects between BRCA mutations and diet diversity in breast cancer (BC), a case-only study was carried out in a French-Canadian population including 738 patients with incident primary BC comprising 38 BRCA mutation carriers. Diet diversity was assessed using a validated food frequency questionnaire. Unconditional logistic regression analysis was performed to assess case-only odds ratio (COR) and 95% confidence interval (CI) while adjusting for age, body mass index, smoking, hormonal replacement therapy, and total energy intake. Ours results reveal a strong and significant interaction between BRCA mutations and vegetable and fruit diversity (COR = 0.27; 95%CI = 0.10–0.80; P = 0.03) when comparing the upper to the lower quartiles. The estimates for departure from multiplicative effects between BRCA mutations and total or other food groups’ diversity were not supportive of the idea of a gene–environment interaction. The results of this study suggest that the combination of BRCA mutations and vegetable and fruit diversity may be associated with a reduced risk of BC.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Canadian Cancer Statistics (2008) http://www.cancer.ca. Cited 2 December 2008
Begg CB, Haile RW, Borg A et al (2008) Variation of breast cancer risk among BRCA1/2 carriers. JAMA 299:194–201. doi:10.1001/jama.2007.55-a
Antoniou AC, Pharoah PD, Narod S et al (2005) Breast and ovarian cancer risks to carriers of the BRCA1 5382insC and 185delAG and BRCA2 6174delT mutations: a combined analysis of 22 population based studies. J Med Genet 42:602–603. doi:10.1136/jmg.2004.024133
Kant AK, Block G, Schatzkin A et al (1991) Dietary diversity in the US population. NHANES II, 1976–1980. J Am Diet Assoc 91:1526–1531
Butrum RR, Clifford CK, Lanza E (1988) NCI dietary guidelines: rationale. Am J Clin Nutr 48(Suppl 3):888–895
Levi F, Pasche C, La Vecchia C et al (1998) Food groups and risk of oral and pharyngeal cancer. Int J Cancer 77:705–709. doi:10.1002/(SICI)1097-0215(19980831)77:5<705::AID-IJC8>3.0.CO;2-Z
Garavello W, Giordano L, Bosetti C et al (2008) Diet diversity and the risk of oral and pharyngeal cancer. Eur J Nutr 47:280–284. doi:10.1007/s00394-008-0722-y
Garavello W, Lucenteforte E, Bosetti C et al (2009) Diet diversity and the risk of laryngeal cancer: a case–control study from Italy and Switzerland. Oral Oncol 45:85–89. doi:10.1016/j.oraloncology.2008.02.011
La Vecchia C, Munoz SE, Braga C et al (1997) Diet diversity and gastric cancer. Int J Cancer 72:255–257. doi:10.1002/(SICI)1097-0215(19970717)72:2<255::AID-IJC9>3.0.CO;2-Q
Lucenteforte E, Garavello W, Bosetti C et al (2008) Diet diversity and the risk of squamous cell esophageal cancer. Int J Cancer 123:2397–2400. doi:10.1002/ijc.23761
McCann SE, Randall E, Marshall JR et al (1994) Diet diversity and risk of colon cancer in western New York. Nutr Cancer 21:133–141
Fernandez E, D’Avanzo B, Negri E et al (1996) Diet diversity and the risk of colorectal cancer in northern Italy. Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 5:433–436
Slattery ML, Berry TD, Potter J et al (1997) Diet diversity, diet composition, and risk of colon cancer (United States). Cancer Causes Control 8:872–882. doi:10.1023/A:1018416412906
Fernandez E, Negri E, La Vecchia C et al (2000) Diet diversity and colorectal cancer. Prev Med 31:11–14. doi:10.1006/pmed.2000.0667
Canada’s Food Guide to Healthy Eating (2008) http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/fn-an/food-guide-aliment/. Cited 28 November 2008
Nkondjock A, Ghadirian P (2006) Diet quality and BRCA-associated breast cancer risk. Breast Cancer Res Treat 103:361–369. doi:10.1007/s10549-006-9371-0
Nkondjock A, Robidoux A, Paredes Y et al (2006) Diet, lifestyle and BRCA-related breast cancer risk among French-Canadians. Breast Cancer Res Treat 98:285–294. doi:10.1007/s10549-006-9161-8
Jain M, Howe GR, Rohan T (1996) Dietary assessment in epidemiology: comparison on food frequency and a diet history questionnaire with a 7-day food records. Am J Epidemiol 143:953–960
Ghadirian P, Jain M, Ducic S et al (1998) Nutritional factors in the aetiology of multiple sclerosis: a case–control study in Montreal, Canada. Int J Epidemiol 27:845–852. doi:10.1093/ije/27.5.845
Khoury MJ, Flanders WD (1996) Nontraditional epidemiologic approaches in the analysis of gene–environment interaction: case–control studies with no controls. Am J Epidemiol 144:207–213
Begg CB, Zhang ZF (1994) Statistical analysis of molecular epidemiology studies employing case-series. Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 3:173–175
Malin AS, Qi D, Shu XO et al (2003) Intake of fruits, vegetables and selected micronutrients in relation to the risk of breast cancer. Int J Cancer 105:413–418. doi:10.1002/ijc.11088
Franceschi S, Favero A, La Vecchia C et al (1995) Influence of food groups and food diversity on breast cancer risk in Italy. Int J Cancer 63:785–789. doi:10.1002/ijc.2910630606
Sant M, Allemani C, Sieri S et al (2007) Salad vegetable dietary pattern protects against HER-2 positive breast cancer: a prospective Italian study. Int J Cancer 121:911–914. doi:10.1002/ijc.22714
Zhang S, Hunter DJ, Forman MR et al (1999) Dietary carotenoids and vitamin A, C, and E and risk of breast cancer. J Natl Cancer Inst 91:547–556. doi:10.1093/jnci/91.6.547
Fung TT, Hu FB, Holmes MD et al (2005) Dietary patterns and the risk of postmenopausal breast cancer. Int J Cancer 116:116–121. doi:10.1002/ijc.20999
Gandini S, Merzenich H, Robertson C et al (2000) Meta-analysis of studies on breast cancer risk and diet: the role of fruit and vegetable consumption and the intake of associated micronutrients. Eur J Cancer 36:636–646. doi:10.1016/S0959-8049(00)00022-8
Smith-Warner SA, Spiegelman D, Yaun SS et al (2001) Intake of fruits and vegetables and risk of breast cancer: a pooled analysis of cohort studies. JAMA 285:769–776. doi:10.1001/jama.285.6.769
van Gils CH, Peeters PH, Bueno-de-Mesquita HB et al (2005) Consumption of vegetables and fruits and risk of breast cancer. JAMA 293:183–193. doi:10.1001/jama.293.2.183
Chlebowski RT, Blackburn GL, Buzzard IM et al (1993) Adherence to a dietary fat intake reduction program in postmenopausal women receiving therapy for early breast cancer. The women’s intervention nutrition study. J Clin Oncol 11:2072–2080
Pierce JP, Natarajan L, Caan BJ et al (2007) Influence of a diet very high in vegetables, fruit, and fiber and low in fat on prognosis following treatment for breast cancer: the women’s healthy eating and living (WHEL) randomized trial. JAMA 298:289–298. doi:10.1001/jama.298.3.289
Floyd RA (1990) Role of oxygen free radicals in carcinogenesis and brain ischemia. FASEB J 4:2587–2597
Xu X, Duncan AM, Wangen KE et al (2000) Soy consumption alters endogenous estrogen metabolism in postmenopausal women. Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 9:781–786
Masson LF, Sharp L, Cotton SC et al (2005) Cytochrome P-450 1A1 gene polymorphisms and risk of breast cancer: a HuGE review. Am J Epidemiol 161:901–915. doi:10.1093/aje/kwi121
Wang S, DeGroff VL, Clinton SK (2003) Tomato and soy polyphenols reduce insulin-like growth factor-I-stimulated rat prostate cancer cell proliferation and apoptotic resistance in vitro via inhibition of intracellular signaling pathways involving tyrosine kinase. J Nutr 133:2367–2376
Peruzzi F, Prisco M, Dews M et al (1999) Multiple signaling pathways of the insulin-like growth factor 1 receptor in protection from apoptosis. Mol Cell Biol 19:7203–7215
Lord RS, Bongiovanni B, Bralley JA (2002) Estrogen metabolism and the diet-cancer connection: rationale for assessing the ratio of urinary hydroxylated estrogen metabolites. Altern Med Rev 7:112–129
Kerr P, Ashworth A (2001) New complexities for BRCA1 and BRCA2. Curr Biol 11:R668–R676. doi:10.1016/S0960-9822(01)00389-X
Venkitaraman AR (2001) Functions of BRCA1 and BRCA2 in the biological response to DNA damage. J Cell Sci 114:3591–3598
Tutt A, Ashworth A (2002) The relationship between the roles of BRCA genes in DNA repair and cancer predisposition. Trends Mol Med 8:571–576. doi:10.1016/S1471-4914(02)02434-6
Narod SA (2001) Hormonal prevention of hereditary breast cancer. Ann N Y Acad Sci 952:36–43
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Ghadirian, P., Narod, S., Fafard, E. et al. Breast cancer risk in relation to the joint effect of BRCA mutations and diet diversity. Breast Cancer Res Treat 117, 417–422 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10549-008-0292-y
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10549-008-0292-y