Fruit And Vegetable Intake And Risk Of Breast Cancer: Pooled Analysis Of The Nurses' Health Study And The Nurses' Health Study Ii

Fruit and vegetable intake has been hypothesized to protect against breast cancer, but the overall evidence has not been supportive. Using pooled data from the Nurses’ Health Study and the Nurses’ Health Study II cohorts, we evaluated fruit and vegetable intake in relation to breast cancer risk. Diet was assessed every 4 years using semi-quantitative food frequency questionnaires. Cox proportional hazards regression, adjusting for multiple breast cancer risk factors, was used to estimate hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs)for each category, using the lowest quintile of intake as the reference category. Among 182,204 women aged 27 to 66 years, we prospectively identified 10,973 invasive breast cancer cases during follow-up from 1980 through 2012 for the Nurses’ Health Study and from 1991 through 2013 for the Nurses’ Health Study II. Fruit and vegetable intake was significantly associated with a lower risk of breast cancer. The pooled multivariate HR (95% CIs) for highest (3.2 servings/day) versus lowest (0.4 serving/day) quintile intake of total fruit intake was 0.93 (0.86-0.99; P trend =0.03) and for highest (4.9 servings/day) versus lowest (1.5 servings/day) quintile intake of total vegetable was 0.92 (0.86-0.99; P trend =0.02). We also observed that a higher intake of yellow/orange vegetables, cruciferous vegetable, fruits and vegetables rich in vitamin C, fruits and vegetables rich in α-carotene, fruits and vegetables rich in β-carotene, and fruits and vegetables rich in lutein was each associated with a lower breast cancer risk. In addition, the association with vegetable intake was stronger for both estrogen and progesterone receptor negative (HR=0.91; 95%CIs=0.87-0.95) than both estrogen and progesterone receptor positive cancers (HR=0.98; 95%CIs=0.96-1.00; P heterogeneity =0.003). Our findings support an association of a higher fruit and vegetable intake with a lower breast cancer risk. Citation Format: Maryam S. Farvid, Walter C. Willett, A. Heather Eliassen. Fruit and vegetable intake and risk of breast cancer: Pooled analysis of the Nurses’ Health Study and the Nurses’ Health Study II [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2017; 2017 Apr 1-5; Washington, DC. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2017;77(13 Suppl):Abstract nr 5325A. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2017-5325A