Journal Article

Consumption of ultra-processed foods and cancer risk: results from NutriNet-Santé prospective cohort

Allès, Benjamin, Lavalette, Céline, Srour, Bernard, Sellem, Laury, Latino-Martel, Paule, Fiolet, Thibault, Hercberg, Serge, Touvier, Mathilde, Kesse-Guyot, Emmanuelle, Fassier, Philippine, Monteiro, Carlos A, Beslay, Marie, Méjean, Caroline, Deschasaux, Mélanie, Julia, Chantal

2018

Overview

AbstractObjectiveTo assess the prospective associations between consumption of ultra-processed food and risk of cancer.DesignPopulation based cohort study.Setting and participants104 980 participants aged at least 18 years (median age 42.8 years) from the French NutriNet-Santé cohort (2009-17). Dietary intakes were collected using repeated 24 hour dietary records, designed to register participants’ usual consumption for 3300 different food items. These were categorised according to their degree of processing by the NOVA classification.Main outcome measuresAssociations between ultra-processed food intake and risk of overall, breast, prostate, and colorectal cancer assessed by multivariable Cox proportional hazard models adjusted for known risk factors.ResultsUltra-processed food intake was associated with higher overall cancer risk (n=2228 cases; hazard ratio for a 10% increment in the proportion of ultra-processed food in the diet 1.12 (95% confidence interval 1.06 to 1.18); P for trend<0.001) and breast cancer risk (n=739 cases; hazard ratio 1.11 (1.02 to 1.22); P for trend=0.02). These results remained statistically significant after adjustment for several markers of the nutritional quality of the diet (lipid, sodium, and carbohydrate intakes and/or a Western pattern derived by principal component analysis).ConclusionsIn this large prospective study, a 10% increase in the proportion of ultra-processed foods in the diet was associated with a significant increase of greater than 10% in risks of overall and breast cancer. Further studies are needed to better understand the relative effect of the various dimensions of processing (nutritional composition, food additives, contact materials, and neoformed contaminants) in these associations.Study registrationClinicaltrials.gov NCT03335644.

• Publisher: BMJ Publishing Group LTD,BMJ Publishing Group,BMJ Publishing Group Ltd
• Subject: Additives / Alcohol / Bisphenol A / Breast cancer / Cancer / Colorectal cancer / Colorectal carcinoma / Contaminants / Dietary intake / Food additives / Food and Nutrition / Food composition / Food consumption / Food intake / Food processing / Health risk assessment / Life Sciences / Meat processing / Medical research / Nutrition research / Population studies / Processed foods / Prostate cancer / Questionnaires / Risk factors / Santé publique et épidémiologie / Sociodemographics / Sodium / Statistical analysis / Systematic review