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Association between rice consumption and risk of cancer incidence in the California Teachers Study

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Abstract

Purpose

We evaluated the contribution of rice intake, a source of dietary arsenic, to cancer risk in a population of women with likely low arsenic exposure from drinking water and variable rice intake who participated in the California Teachers Study.

Methods

Rice consumption was categorized into quartiles (< 9.6, 9.7–15.6, 15.7–42.7, and ≥ 42.8 g/day). Multivariable-adjusted hazard ratios and 95% confidence intervals (95% CI) for incident cancer were estimated comparing rice consumption categories with bladder, breast, kidney, lung, and pancreatic cancer, with progressive adjustment for age, total calories, BMI, race, smoking status, physical activity, and cancer-specific covariates.

Results

The number of breast, lung, pancreatic, bladder, and kidney cancer cases was 7,351; 1,100; 411; 344; and 238, respectively. The adjusted hazard ratios (95% CI) comparing the highest versus lowest rice intake quartiles were 1.07 (1.00–1.15); 0.87 (0.72–1.04); 0.95 (0.66–1.37); 1.11 (0.81–1.52) and 1.07 (0.72–1.59) for breast, lung, pancreatic, bladder, and kidney cancers, respectively. Results were consistent when rice was modeled as a continuous variable and in analyses stratified by smoking status.

Conclusion

Rice consumption was not associated with risk of kidney, lung or pancreatic cancer, except maybe a small excess risk for breast cancer and a small non-significant excess risk for bladder cancer, comparing the highest versus lowest quartile of rice intake. Due to lower consumption patterns in this cohort, future studies should involve populations for which rice is a staple food and use of an arsenic biomarker.

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Acknowledgments

The California Teachers Study and the research reported in this publication were supported by the National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health under award number U01-CA199277; P30-CA033572; P30-CA023100; UM1-CA164917; and R01-CA077398. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Cancer Institute or the National Institutes of Health. Drs. Sanchez, Klu, Genkinger, and Navas-Acien were supported by grant award number P42-ES010349; P30-ES009089; and R01-ES028758. The collection of cancer incidence data used in the California Teachers Study was supported by the California Department of Public Health pursuant to California Health and Safety Code Section 103885; Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Program of Cancer Registries, under cooperative agreement 5NU58DP006344; the National Cancer Institute’s Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results Program under contract HHSN261201800032I awarded to the University of California, San Francisco, contract HHSN261201800015I awarded to the University of Southern California, and contract HHSN261201800009I awarded to the Public Health Institute. The opinions, findings, and conclusions expressed herein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official views of the State of California, Department of Public Health, the National Cancer Institute, the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention or their Contractors and Subcontractors, or the Regents of the University of California, or any of its programs. The authors would like to thank the California Teachers Study Steering Committee that is responsible for the formation and maintenance of the Study within which this research was conducted. A full list of California Teachers Study team members is available at https://www.calteachersstudy.org/team.

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Author notes

  1. Tiffany R. Sanchez and Yaa Asantewaa Kafui Klu contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Environmental Health Sciences, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, New York, NY, 10032, USA

    Tiffany R. Sanchez, Yaa Asantewaa Kafui Klu & Ana Navas-Acien

  2. Department of Epidemiology, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, New York, NY, 10032, USA

    Jeanine M. Genkinger

  3. Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center, Columbia University, New York, NY, 10032, USA

    Jeanine M. Genkinger

  4. Department of Computational and Quantitative Medicine, Beckman Research Institute, City of Hope, Duarte, CA, 91010, USA

    James V. Lacey Jr. & Nadia T. Chung

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  1. Tiffany R. Sanchez
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Correspondence to Tiffany R. Sanchez.

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Sanchez, T.R., Klu, Y.A.K., Genkinger, J.M. et al. Association between rice consumption and risk of cancer incidence in the California Teachers Study. Cancer Causes Control 31, 1129–1140 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10552-020-01350-9

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