Food Group or Nutrient Intake and Risk of Pancreatic Cancer in Postmenopausal Women of the Iowa Women's Health Study

Pancreatic cancer has an extremely poor prognosis; diagnosis is usually at a late stage and treatments are of limited benefit. It is important to identify modifiable risk factors, like diet, that may prevent pancreatic cancer, but previous findings regarding dietary intake are inconsistent. We examined associations between intake of food groups and nutrients and risk of pancreatic cancer using data from the Iowa Women's Health Study (IWHS) cohort. Dietary intake was assessed using a food frequency questionnaire (FFQ) at baseline (1986). Food and nutrient intakes were adjusted for energy using the residual method. After excluding women who reported cancer at baseline, had implausible energy intake or ≥30 missing responses on the FFQ or developed atypical pancreatic tumors, there were 34,642 postmenopausal women for analysis. During mean follow-up of 16.3 person-years, 256 pancreatic cancer cases were identified. We analyzed associations between dietary intake and risk of pancreatic cancer using Cox regression models. Age at baseline (RR=1.06), history of diabetes (RR=1.65), and current smoking (RR=1.71) significantly increased risk of pancreatic cancer, as expected, but no significant associations were observed between risk of pancreatic cancer and intake of any food group or nutrient. We will further analyze potential associations between risk of pancreatic cancer and dietary patterns, as distinct from individual foods or nutrients, in this study population.