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Fruit and vegetable intake and the risk of colorectal cancer: results from the Shanghai Men’s Health Study

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Abstract

Purpose

The observed associations of fruit and vegetable consumption with the risk of colorectal cancer have been inconsistent. Therefore, we aimed to evaluate the association of fruit and vegetable consumption with the risk of colorectal cancer among Chinese men.

Methods

61,274 male participants aged 40–74 years were included. A validated food frequency questionnaire was administered to collect information on usual dietary intake, including 8 fruits and 38 vegetables commonly consumed by residents of Shanghai. Follow-up for diagnoses of colon or rectal cancer was available through 31 December 2010. Dietary intakes were analyzed both as categorical and continuous variables. Multivariable-adjusted hazard ratios (HRs) and 95 % confidence intervals (95 % CIs) were calculated for colorectal, colon, and rectal cancers using Cox proportional hazards models.

Results

After 390,688 person-years of follow-up, 398 cases of colorectal cancer (236 colon and 162 rectal) were observed in the cohort. Fruit consumption was inversely associated with the risk of colorectal cancer (fifth vs. first quintile HR 0.67; 95 % CI 0.48, 0.95; p trend = 0.03), whereas vegetable intake was not significantly associated with risk. The associations for subgroups of fruits and legumes, but not other vegetable categories, were generally inversely associated with the risk of colon and rectal cancers.

Conclusions

Fruit intake was generally inversely associated with the risk of colorectal cancer, whereas vegetable consumption was largely unrelated to risk among middle-aged and older Chinese men.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the participants and the staff from the Shanghai Men's Health Study for their contribution to this research. This work was supported by funds from the United States National Institutes of Health (R01 CA082729); E.V. and H-LL were supported by the Fogarty International Clinical Research Scholars and Fellows Program at Vanderbilt University (R24 TW007988-5) while E.V. was at the Shanghai Cancer Institute; and EV was supported by the Cancer Prevention and Control Training Program at the University of Alabama at Birmingham funded through the National Institutes of Health (5R25 CA047888).

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Epidemiology, Department of Medicine, Vanderbilt Epidemiology Center, Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center, Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, Nashville, TN, 37203, USA

    Emily Vogtmann, Gong Yang, Hui Cai, Wei Zheng & Xiao-Ou Shu

  2. Department of Epidemiology, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL, 35294, USA

    Emily Vogtmann, Emily B. Levitan & John W. Waterbor

  3. Department of Epidemiology, Shanghai Cancer Institute, Renji Hospital, Shanghai Jiaotong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, 200032, China

    Yong-Bing Xiang, Hong-Lan Li, Jing Gao, Li Xie, Qi-Jun Wu & Yu-Tang Gao

  4. Division of Biostatistics and Epidemiology, Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, Cincinnati, OH, 45229, USA

    Bin Zhang

  5. Vanderbilt University Medical Center, 2525 West End Avenue, Suite 600 (IMPH), Nashville, TN, 37232-8300, USA

    Xiao-Ou Shu

Authors
  1. Emily Vogtmann
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  2. Yong-Bing Xiang
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  9. Li Xie
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  14. Xiao-Ou Shu
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Correspondence to Xiao-Ou Shu.

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Vogtmann, E., Xiang, YB., Li, HL. et al. Fruit and vegetable intake and the risk of colorectal cancer: results from the Shanghai Men’s Health Study. Cancer Causes Control 24, 1935–1945 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10552-013-0268-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10552-013-0268-z

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