Inflammatory potential of diet and risk of lymphoma in the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition.

INTRODUCTION: Chronic inflammation plays a critical role in lymphomagenesis and several dietary factors seem to be involved its regulation. The aim of the current study was to assess the association between the inflammatory potential of the diet and the risk of lymphoma and its subtypes in the European Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC) study. METHODS: The analysis included 476,160 subjects with an average follow-up of 13.9 years, during which 3,136 lymphomas (135 Hodgkin lymphoma (HL), 2606 non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) and 395 NOS) were identified. The dietary inflammatory potential was assessed by means of an inflammatory score of the diet (ISD), calculated using 28 dietary components and their corresponding inflammatory weights. The association between the ISD and lymphoma risk was estimated by hazard ratios (HR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) calculated by multivariable Cox regression models adjusted for potential confounders. RESULTS: The ISD was not associated with overall lymphoma risk. Among lymphoma subtypes, a positive association between the ISD and mature B-cell NHL (HR for a 1-SD increase: 1.07 (95% CI 1.01; 1.14), p trend = 0.03) was observed. No statistically significant association was found among other subtypes. However, albeit with smaller number of cases, a suggestive association was observed for HL (HR for a 1-SD increase = 1.22 (95% CI 0.94; 1.57), p trend 0.13). CONCLUSIONS: Our findings suggested that a high ISD score, reflecting a pro-inflammatory diet, was modestly positively associated with the risk of B-cell lymphoma subtypes. Further large prospective studies on low-grade inflammation induced by diet are warranted to confirm these findings.

Inflammatory potential of the diet and mortality in the Spanish cohort of the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC-Spain).

SCOPE: Low-grade chronic inflammation is associated with several chronic conditions, and diet is known to play a role in chronic inflammation. We aimed to evaluate the association between the inflammatory potential of the diet and mortality in the Spanish population from the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC-Spain). METHODS AND RESULTS: The study included 41 199 participants (62% female) aged 29-69 years from five Spanish regions. During 18 years of follow-up 3316 deaths were identified. The dietary inflammatory potential was assessed by means of an inflammatory score of the diet (ISD), calculated using 30 dietetic components and their corresponding inflammatory scores (weights). The association between the ISD and mortality was analyzed by multivariate Cox regression models. There was a significant association between ISD and mortality: subjects classified in the fifth quintile of the ISD (more proinflammatory diets) had a hazard ratio of 1.42 (95%-confidence interval 1.25-1.60) as compared with those in the first quintile; the corresponding figures were 1.89 (1.48-2.40) for cardiovascular diseases mortality and 1.44 (1.22-1.69) for death by cancer. CONCLUSION: Consuming more proinflammatory diets, expressed by means of the ISD, is associated with higher mortality; this effect seems to be stronger for deaths by cardiovascular diseases.