Abstract
Over the past decade, several large epidemiologic investigations of meat intake and prostate cancer have been published. Therefore, a meta-analysis of prospective studies was conducted to estimate potential associations between red or processed meat intake and prostate cancer. Fifteen studies of red meat and 11 studies of processed meat were included in the analyses. High vs. low intake and dose-response analyses were conducted using random effects models to generate summary relative risk estimates (SRRE). No association between high vs. low red meat consumption (SRRE = 1.00, 95% CI: 0.96-1.05) or each 100 g increment of red meat (SRRE = 1.00, 95% CI: 0.95-1.05) and total prostate cancer was observed. Similarly, no association with red meat was observed for advanced prostate cancer (SRRE = 1.01, 95% CI: 0.94-1.09). A weakly elevated summary association between processed meat and total prostate cancer was found (SRRE = 1.05, 95% CI: 0.99-1.12), although heterogeneity was present, the association was attenuated in a sub-group analysis of studies that adjusted for multiple potential confounding factors, and publication bias likely affected the summary effect. In conclusion, the results of this meta-analysis are not supportive of an independent positive association between red or processed meat intake and prostate cancer.
Highlights
Worldwide, prostate cancer is the second most common cancer among men, with only lung cancer accounting for more cancer diagnoses annually, the incidence of prostate cancer varies considerably by geographic region [1]
Studies of populations migrating to the United States (U.S.) from Japan and China have shown that the rate of prostate cancer increased compared to those in their native countries, independent of early detection [2,3,4,5], suggesting that lifestyle and dietary habits may contribute to the increasing rates of disease [6,7,8,9,10,11]
Summary of Meta-Analysis Results for Red and Processed Meat Intake and Prostate Cancer No association between consumption of red meat and total prostate cancer was observed in the meta-analysis of 15 prospective studies (SRRE = 1.00, 95% CI: 0.96-1.05; p-value for heterogeneity = 0.264) (Table 2, Figure 1)
Summary
Prostate cancer is the second most common cancer among men, with only lung cancer accounting for more cancer diagnoses annually, the incidence of prostate cancer varies considerably by geographic region [1]. In the U.S, prostate cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer among men, accounting for approximately one-quarter of all new cancer cases, and this malignancy ranks as the second most. Diet and prostate cancer has been investigated in numerous epidemiologic studies, few foods have been identified as potentially contributing to increasing or decreasing the risk of this malignancy. High intake of foods containing lycopene and selenium may decrease risk of prostate cancer while diets high in calcium may increase risk [3,13], the epidemiologic evidence is not entirely clear. Some early studies have suggested that fat intake may be associated positively with prostate cancer [7,14,15], but recent prospective studies have reported no associations with fat consumption [16,17]
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