Gonzalez Carlos A
Department of Epidemiology, Institut Català d'Oncologia (ICO), Barcelona, Spain.
Public Health Nutr. 2006 Feb;9(1A):124-6. doi: 10.1079/phn2005934.
To describe the main finding produced so far by the EPIC project, which aims to improve the scientific knowledge of nutritional factors involved in cancer.
Prospective cohort study in 23 centres from 10 European countries. Dietary assessment method varied by countries: in some cases a diet history by personal interview was carried out, while in most countries a self-administered semi-quantitative food-frequency questionnaire was used; in one case the questionnaire was combined with a food record. Information on a wide range of lifestyle factors and anthropometric measurements were also collected for most participants.
The cohort includes 521,468 men and women mostly aged between 39 and 69 years, whereas blood samples are available for 387,889 subjects.
To date 24 185 cancer cases have been identified in the follow-up of the cohort. The publications produced by each centre can be consulted on the EPIC website (http://www.iarc.fr/epic/). Among initial findings concerning the associations between cancer and dietary factors, one of the most important results is a protective effect of high fibre intake and fish consumption against colorectal cancer, while high red and processed meat intake increase the risk. Regarding lung cancer the first analyses found a protective effect of fruit intake but no association with vegetable consumption. No association was observed between vegetables and fruit intake and the risk of prostate cancer or breast cancer. Finally, data from Cambridge point to an interesting result regarding breast cancer: no association was observed with saturated fat intake measured by food-frequency questionnaire, but according to the food diary a daily intake of 35 g doubles the risk of breast cancer compared to women with daily intake of 10 g or less.
描述目前由欧洲癌症与营养前瞻性队列研究（EPIC）项目得出的主要研究结果，该项目旨在增进对癌症相关营养因素的科学认识。
对来自10个欧洲国家的23个中心进行前瞻性队列研究。各国的饮食评估方法有所不同：在某些情况下，通过个人访谈获取饮食史，而在大多数国家，使用的是自行填写的半定量食物频率问卷；在一个案例中，问卷与食物记录相结合。大多数参与者还提供了一系列生活方式因素和人体测量数据。
该队列包括521468名男性和女性，年龄大多在39至69岁之间，其中387889名受试者有血液样本。
截至目前，在队列随访中已确定24185例癌症病例。各中心发表的论文可在EPIC网站（http://www.iarc.fr/epic/）上查阅。在有关癌症与饮食因素关联的初步研究结果中，最重要的结果之一是高纤维摄入量和鱼类消费对结直肠癌有保护作用，而高红肉和加工肉摄入量会增加风险。关于肺癌，首次分析发现水果摄入有保护作用，但与蔬菜消费无关。未观察到蔬菜和水果摄入量与前列腺癌或乳腺癌风险之间存在关联。最后，剑桥的数据得出了一个关于乳腺癌的有趣结果：通过食物频率问卷测量，未发现与饱和脂肪摄入量有关联，但根据食物日记，与每日摄入量为10克或更少的女性相比，每日摄入量为35克的女性患乳腺癌的风险增加一倍。
