Dietary advanced glycation end products (AGEs) and breast cancer mortality in the women’s health initiative (WHI).

Abstract

1570 Background: Breast cancer (BrCa) is the second leading cause of cancer death and constitutes about 14% of total cancer deaths among US women. Advanced glycation end-products (AGEs) are implicated in chronic diseases including cancer and cardiovascular diseases (CVD). AGEs are naturally found in animal products and processed foods, and preparing food at high temperatures increases AGE formation. Our goal was to assess the association between post-diagnosis dietary NƐ-carboxymethyl-lysine (CML)-AGE intake, a common measure of AGE, and mortality from all-causes, BrCa and CVD among participants with invasive BrCa in the Women’s Health Initiative (WHI). Methods: The WHI enrolled postmenopausal women aged 50 to 79 years from 1993-1998 into randomized controlled trials and a prospective observational study to examine causes of morbidity and mortality. In this analysis, we included 2,073 women diagnosed with invasive BrCa during follow-up who completed a food frequency questionnaire (FFQ) after diagnosis, had energy intakes between ≥600 kcal/day and ≤5000 kcal/day, and had CML-AGE intake data available. Women were followed from BrCa diagnosis until death or censoring through March 2018. Cox proportional hazards regression models estimated the hazard ratios (HR) and 95% CIs of mortality risk from all-causes, BrCa and CVD by tertiles of dietary CML-AGE intake with adjustment for age, income, race/ethnicity, study arm, time from diagnosis to FFQ completion, education, physical activity, smoking, BMI, ER/PR status, diagnosis stage, postmenopausal hormone use, intake of energy, alcohol, fat, red and processed meats. Results: After a median 15.1 years of follow-up, 642 deaths were reported including 198 BrCa-specific and 129 CVD-specific deaths. The average time from BrCa diagnosis to FFQ completion was 1.5 years. Compared to the lowest tertile of CML-AGE intake, there was an increased risk in the highest tertile for all-cause mortality (HR: 1.51, 95% CI: 1.17-1.94), BrCa (HR: 1.86, 95% CI: 1.19-2.91) and CVD (HR: 2.14, 95% CI: 1.19-3.84) mortality. Conclusions: Higher dietary AGE intake after BrCa diagnosis in postmenopausal women was associated with increased risk of mortality from all-causes, BrCa and CVD. Exposure to AGEs could be modified through dietary counseling and evaluated in relation to reduced mortality risk after BrCa diagnosis.