Dietary intake of vitamin D and calcium and breast cancer risk in the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition.

Studies assessing the effects of vitamin D or calcium intake on breast cancer risk have been inconclusive. Furthermore, few studies have evaluated them jointly. This study is the largest so far examining the association of dietary vitamin D and calcium intake with breast cancer risk in the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition. During a mean follow-up of 8.8 yr, 7760 incident invasive breast cancer cases were identified among 319,985 women. Multivariable Cox proportional hazards regression was used to estimate hazard ratios (HR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) for pre- and postmenopausal breast cancer risk. Comparing the highest with the lowest quintile of vitamin D intake, HR and 95% CI were 1.07 (0.87-1.32) and 1.02 (0.90-1.16) for pre- and postmenopausal women, respectively. The corresponding HR and 95% CIs for calcium intake were 0.98 (0.80-1.19) and 0.90 (0.79-1.02), respectively. For calcium intake in postmenopausal women, the test for trend was borderline statistically significant (P(trend) = 0.05). There was no significant interaction between vitamin D and calcium intake and cancer risk (P(interaction) = 0.57 and 0.22 in pre- and postmenopausal women, respectively). In this large prospective cohort, we found no evidence for an association between dietary vitamin D or calcium intake and breast cancer risk.

Level of education and the risk of lymphoma in the European prospective investigation into cancer and nutrition.

INTRODUCTION: Lymphomas belong to the few cancer sites with increasing incidence over past decades, and only a few risk factors have been established. We explored the association between education and the incidence of lymphoma in the prospective EPIC study. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Within 3,567,410 person-years of follow-up, 1,319 lymphoma cases [1,253 non-Hodgkin lymphomas (NHL) and 66 Hodgkin lymphomas (HL)] were identified. Cox proportional hazard regression was used to examine the association between highest educational level (primary school or less, technical/professional school, secondary school, university) and lymphoma risk. RESULTS: Overall, no consistent associations between educational level and lymphoma risk were observed; however, associations were found for sub-groups of the cohort. We observed a higher risk of B-NHL (HR = 1.31, 95% CI = 1.02­1.68; n = 583) in women with the highest education level (university) but not in men. Concerning sub-classes of B-NHL, a positive association between education and risk of B cell chronic lymphatic leukaemia (BCLL) was observed only in women. In both genders, the risk of diffuse large B cell lymphoma (DLBCL) was significantly lower for subjects with university degree (HR = 0.46, 95% CI = 0.27­0.79) versus lowest educational level. No association was found for HL. CONCLUSION: We could not confirm an overall consistent association of education and risk of HL or NHL in this large prospective study; although, education was positively related to the incidence of BCLL and B-NHL (in women) but inversely to incidence of DLBCL. Due to limited number of cases in sub-classes and the large number of comparisons, the possibility of chance findings can not be excluded.