Positive Health Online

Abstract

MERRITT and COLLEAGUES, (1)1] Department of Epidemiology, Harvard School of Public Health, 677 Huntington Avenue, Boston, MA 02115, USA [2] Obstetrics and Gynecology Epidemiology Center,  Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School, 221 Longwood Avenue, Boston, MA 02115, USA [3] Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, School of Public Health, Imperial College London, London W2 1PG, UK; (2)1] Department of Epidemiology, Harvard School of Public Health, 677 Huntington Avenue, Boston, MA 02115, USA [2] Obstetrics and Gynecology Epidemiology Center,  Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School, 221 Longwood Avenue, Boston, MA 02115, USA; (3)1] Department of Epidemiology, Harvard School of Public Health, 677 Huntington Avenue, Boston, MA 02115, USA [2] Division of Reproductive Medicine, Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Biology, Brigham and Women's Hospital  and Harvard Medical School, 221 Longwood Avenue, Boston, MA 02115, USA [3] Channing Division of Network Medicine, Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School, 181 Longwood Avenue, Boston, MA 02115, USA; (4)Obstetrics and Gynecology Epidemiology Center, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School, 221 Longwood Avenue, Boston, MA 02115, USA; (5)Department of Community and Family Medicine, Dartmouth Medical School, Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth, One Medical Center Drive, HB 7926, Lebanon, NH 03756, USA evaluated fat intake in a case-control study and assessed ovarian cancer risk factors with diet, to test whether associations varied by histologic subtype.

Background

Studies of fat intake and epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) risk have reported inconsistent findings, hence the authors hypothesised that associations may vary by histologic subtype.

Methodology

The authors evaluated fat intake in a New England case-control study including 1872 cases and 1978 population-based controls (1992-2008). Epithelial ovarian cancer risk factors and diet were assessed using a food frequency questionnaire at enrolment. Logistic regression was used to estimate associations between fat intake and EOC risk and polytomous logistic regression was used to test whether associations varied by histologic subtype.

Results

The authors observed a decreased risk of EOC when comparing the highest vs lowest quartiles of intake of omega-3 (odds ratio (OR)=0.79, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.66-0.96, P-trend=0.01) and omega-6 (OR=0.77, 95% CI 0.64-0.94, P-trend=0.02) and an increased risk with high consumption of trans fat (OR=1.30, 95% CI 1.08-1.57, P-trend=0.002). There was no significant heterogeneity by tumour histologic subtype; however, we observed a strong decreased risk for endometrioid invasive tumours with high intake of omega-3 (quartile (Q) 4 vs Q1, OR=0.58, 95% CI 0.41-0.82, P-trend=0.003).

Conclusion

These findings suggest that higher intake of omega-3 may be protective for EOC overall and endometrioid tumours in particular, whereas greater consumption of trans fat may increase risk of EOC overall.

References

Merritt MA(1), Cramer DW(2), Missmer SA(3), Vitonis AF(4), Titus LJ(5), Terry KL(2). Dietary fat intake and risk of epithelial ovarian cancer by tumour histology.  Br J Cancer. 110(5):1392-401. doi: 10.1038/bjc.2014.16. Mar 4 2014. Epub 2014 Jan  28.