Hepatocellular carcinoma. Relationship to wine and pork consumption.

The authors investigated the possibility that dietary fat, meat, beef, and pork consumption might be factors that would, in addition to alcohol, correlate with mortality from hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) in different countries. The authors also relate the consumption of different alcoholic beverages (wine, beer, spirits) to HCC mortality. The significant relationships were between HCC mortality and alcohol consumption (r = 0.40, P less than 0.05), wine consumption (r = 0.46, P less than 0.05), and pork consumption (r = 0.40, P less than 0.05). The intake of alcohol, wine, and pork was also significantly higher in the countries with HCC mortality of greater than 3/100,000, compared with countries with HCC mortality of less than 3/100,000.