Raw Garlic Consumption and Lung Cancer in a Chinese Population.

BACKGROUND: Evidence of anticancer properties of garlic for different cancer sites has been reported previously in in vitro and in vivo experimental studies but there is limited epidemiologic evidence on the association between garlic and lung cancer. METHODS: We examined the association between raw garlic consumption and lung cancer in a case-control study conducted between 2005 and 2007 in Taiyuan, China. Epidemiologic data was collected by face-to-face interviews from 399 incident lung cancer cases and 466 healthy controls. We used unconditional logistic regression models to estimate crude and adjusted ORs (aOR) and their 95% confidence intervals (CI). Adjusted models controlled for age, sex, average annual household income 10 years ago, smoking, and indoor air pollution. RESULTS: Compared with no intake, raw garlic intake was associated with lower risk of development of lung cancer with a dose-response pattern (aOR for <2 times/week = 0.56; 95% CI, 0.39-0.81 and aOR for ≥2 times/week = 0.50; 95% CI, 0.34-0.74; Ptrend = 0.0002). Exploratory analysis showed an additive interaction of raw garlic consumption with indoor air pollution and with any supplement use in association with lung cancer. CONCLUSIONS: The results of the current study suggest that raw garlic consumption is associated with reduced risk of lung cancer in a Chinese population. IMPACT: This study contributes to the limited research in human population on the association between garlic and lung cancer and advocates further investigation into the use of garlic in chemoprevention of lung cancer. Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev; 25(4); 624-33. ©2016 AACR.

Reliability of sport fish consumption in the New York State Angler cohort study.

This paper examines the reliability of sport fish consumption data from the New York State Angler Cohort Study (NYSACS). NYSACS is a prospective cohort study conducted among New York State registered sportsmen and fishermen. Sport fish consumption information for New York State waters including the Great Lakes between June 1990 and June 1991 were collected through self-administered questionnaires, Spouses of male anglers were asked to provide their husbands' fish consumption during the same time period. A short telephone interview after the cohort was ascertained was also conducted among about 100 study participants for the purpose of quality control. Percentage agreement, kappa, and weighted kappa were calculated to evaluate the reliability of the interview using spousal data and reinterview data. Overall, for the total fish consumption between June 1990 and June 1991, percentage agreement, kappa, and weighted kappa between spousal data and primary response were 67.28%, 0.5087, and 0.6157, respectively. For reinterview data, weighted kappa ranged from 0.4510 to 0.5285 for season-specific analysis and kappa ranged from 0.4615 to 0.7006 for fish species-specific analysis. Spouses may be a good source of proxy data for fish consumption. The reliability of sport fish consumption data for the NYSACS study is acceptable, suggesting that the food frequency measuring methods employed are a viable approach to obtain retrospective sport fish consumption data from sportsmen and subsistence anglers.

Profiles of ortho-polychlorinated biphenyl congeners, dichlorodiphenyldichloroethylene, hexachlorobenzene, and Mirex among male Lake Ontario sportfish consumers: the New York State Angler cohort study.

Great Lakes sportfish consumption is a recognized human exposure source to environmental organochlorine compounds. Using data collected as part of the New York State Angler Cohort Study, 203 males were considered with regard to history of Lake Ontario sportfish consumption and sera levels of 57 ortho-substituted polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) congeners, dichlorodiphenyldichloroethylene, hexachlorobenzene, and Mirex. Consumption of six species of highly contaminated Lake Ontario sportfish during the years 1980 to 1990 was considered. Exposure was weighted by average annual frequency of consumption, whole-fish PCB estimates, and meal size to determine a continuous index of exposure. This index was dichotomized to compare "consumers" to "nonconsumers" in several procedures. Recovery and lipid-adjusted serum values for PCB congener IUPAC Nos. 138+163 (rsp=0.3), 183 (rsp=0.3), 187 (rsp=0.4), and 188 (rsp=0.3) and Mirex (rsp=0.4) were significantly correlated with the index of fish consumption (P<0.001). A logistic regression model, using forward stepwise selection procedures (alpha in/out=0.002/0.004), was employed to account for high intercorrelations among organochlorine predictor variables. Mirex was the sole statistically significant predictor variable of "consumer/nonconsumer." A one-unit increase in log Mirex was associated with a 92.0% increase in the odds of having reported sportfish consumption (OR=1.92, 95%CI=1.43, 2.58). Age, body mass index, cigarette smoking, water/wildfowl consumption, and year of sampling were considered covariates. The results of this study support the premise that long-term dietary consumption of Lake Ontario sportfish, even at comparatively low levels, contributes significantly to the body burden of organochlorine compounds in western New York anglers and sportsmen.