Diet diversity and the risk of oral and pharyngeal cancer.
BACKGROUND
Diet diversity has been recommended to achieve a healthy diet and prevent cancer.


OBJECTIVE
The relation between diet diversity (i.e., variety in food intake computed as the total number of foods consumed at least once per week) and the risk of oral and pharyngeal cancer was investigated using data from a multicentric case-control study carried out between 1991 and 2005 in Italy.


METHODS
Cases were 805 patients with histologically confirmed incident cancers of the oral cavity and pharynx, and controls were 2,081 patients admitted for acute, non-neoplastic diseases, unrelated to tobacco or alcohol consumption.


RESULTS
A significant inverse association was observed with total diet diversity. The multivariate odds ratio (OR), adjusted for education, tobacco and alcohol, was 0.78 (95% confidence interval, CI 0.61-0.98) for subjects in the highest tertile of diversity. Inverse relations were found also for diversity within vegetables (OR = 0.62; 95% CI 0.49-0.78) and fruits (OR = 0.67; 95% CI 0.53-0.86).


CONCLUSIONS
This study suggests that a more diversified, and particularly a diet varied in vegetables and fruit, is a favourable indicator of oral and pharyngeal cancer risk, independently from the major recognised risk factors, i.e. alcohol and tobacco consumption.
Garavello
Werner
W
Istituto di Ricerche Farmacologiche Mario Negri, Milan, Italy.
Giordano
Laura
L
Bosetti
Cristina
C
Talamini
Renato
R
Negri
Eva
E
Tavani
Alessandra
A
Maisonneuve
Patrick
P
Franceschi
Silvia
S
La Vecchia
Carlo
C
D000368:Aged; D000428:Alcohol Drinking; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D004032:Diet; D004522:Educational Status; D005260:Female; D005638:Fruit; D006801:Humans; D007558:Italy / Q000453:epidemiology; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009062:Mouth Neoplasms / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000209:etiology; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D016017:Odds Ratio; D010610:Pharyngeal Neoplasms / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000209:etiology; D012307:Risk Factors; D012907:Smoking / Q000009:adverse effects; D014675:Vegetables