Abstract 838: Sugar-sweetened beverage intake and risk of early-onset colorectal cancer

Abstract

Abstract Background: The incidence of early-onset colorectal cancer (EO-CRC) diagnosed under age 50 continues to rise, and the pattern shows a strong birth cohort effect. Sugar-sweetened beverage (SSB) consumption had substantially increased across successive birth cohorts until 2000, and the population under age 50 has the highest level of consumption. Despite the well-documented, adverse metabolic effects of SSBs, their link with EO-CRC remains unexamined. Methods: In the Nurses' Health Study II, consisting of US female registered nurses aged 25-42 in 1989, we prospectively investigated the association between SSB intake and risk of EO-CRC. A total of 95,621 women who had reported beverage intake using validated food frequency questionnaires every 4 years since 1991 were followed up through June 2015. Cox proportional hazards models were used to estimate relative risks (RRs) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs). Results: We documented 109 EO-CRC cases over up to 24 years of follow-up (1,358,158 person-years). SSB consumption was associated with a higher risk of EO-CRC. Compared with individuals who consumed <1 serving/week of SSBs, women who consumed ≥2 servings/day had a more than doubled risk of EO-CRC (RR, 2.18; 95% CI, 1.10-4.35; P for trend=0.02). Each additional serving/day of SSB consumption was associated with a 16% higher risk of EO-CRC (RR, 1.16; 95% CI, 1.00-1.36). Replacing each serving/day of SSB intake with that of artificially sweetened beverages, coffee, reduced fat milk, or total milk was associated with a 17-36% lower risk of EO-CRC. Conclusion: Higher SSB intake was associated with a higher risk of EO-CRC among women. Reduction of SSB consumption among young adults may serve as a potential strategy to alleviate the growing burden of EO-CRC. Citation Format: Jinhee Hur, Ebunoluwa Otegbeye, Hee-Kyung Joh, Katharina Nimptsch, Kimmie Ng, Shuji Ogino, Jeffrey A. Meyerhardt, Andrew T. Chan, Walter C. Willett, Kana Wu, Edward Giovannucci, Yin Cao. Sugar-sweetened beverage intake and risk of early-onset colorectal cancer [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2021; 2021 Apr 10-15 and May 17-21. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2021;81(13_Suppl):Abstract nr 838.