Estimated Substitution of Tea or Coffee for Sugar-Sweetened Beverages Was Associated with Lower Type 2 Diabetes Incidence in Case-Cohort Analysis across 8 European Countries in the EPIC-InterAct Study.

INTRODUCTION: Beverage consumption is a modifiable risk factor for type 2 diabetes (T2D), but there is insufficient evidence to inform the suitability of substituting 1 type of beverage for another. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to estimate the risk of T2D when consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) was replaced with consumption of fruit juice, milk, coffee, or tea. METHODS: In the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC)-InterAct case-cohort study of 8 European countries (n = 27,662, with 12,333 cases of incident T2D, 1992-2007), beverage consumption was estimated at baseline by dietary questionnaires. Using Prentice-weighted Cox regression adjusting for other beverages and potential confounders, we estimated associations of substituting 1 type of beverage for another on incident T2D. RESULTS: Mean ± SD of estimated consumption of SSB was 55 ± 105 g/d. Means ± SDs for the other beverages were as follows: fruit juice, 59 ± 101 g/d; milk, 209 ± 203 g/d; coffee, 381 ± 372 g/d; and tea, 152 ± 282 g/d. Substituting coffee for SSBs by 250 g/d was associated with a 21% lower incidence of T2D (95% CI: 12%, 29%). The rate difference was -12.0 (95% CI: -20.0, -5.0) per 10,000 person-years among adults consuming SSBs ≥250 g/d (absolute rate = 48.3/10,000). Substituting tea for SSBs was estimated to lower T2D incidence by 22% (95% CI: 15%, 28%) or -11.0 (95% CI: -20.0, -2.6) per 10,000 person-years, whereas substituting fruit juice or milk was estimated not to alter T2D risk significantly. CONCLUSIONS: These findings indicate a potential benefit of substituting coffee or tea for SSBs for the primary prevention of T2D and may help formulate public health recommendations on beverage consumption in different populations.

Fatty acid patterns and risk of prostate cancer in a case-control study nested within the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition.

BACKGROUND: Fatty acids in blood may be related to the risk of prostate cancer, but epidemiologic evidence is inconsistent. Blood fatty acids are correlated through shared food sources and common endogenous desaturation and elongation pathways. Studies of individual fatty acids cannot take this into account, but pattern analysis can. Treelet transform (TT) is a novel method that uses data correlation structures to derive sparse factors that explain variation. OBJECTIVE: The objective was to gain further insight in the association between plasma fatty acids and risk of prostate cancer by applying TT to take data correlations into account. DESIGN: We reanalyzed previously published data from a case-control study of prostate cancer nested within the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC) cohort. TT was used to derive factors explaining the variation in 26 plasma phospholipid fatty acids of 962 incident prostate cancer cases matched to 1061 controls. Multiple imputation was used to deal with missing data in covariates. ORs of prostate cancer according to factor scores were determined by using multivariable conditional logistic regression. RESULTS: Four simple factors explained 38% of the variation in plasma fatty acids. A high score on a factor reflecting a long-chain n-3 PUFA pattern was associated with greater risk of prostate cancer (OR for highest compared with lowest quintile: 1.36; 95% CI: 0.99, 1.86; P-trend = 0.041). CONCLUSION: Pattern analyses using TT groupings of correlated fatty acids indicate that intake or metabolism of long-chain n-3 PUFAs may be relevant to prostate cancer etiology.