Association between Dietary Zinc and Selenium Intake, Oxidative Stress-Related Gene Polymorphism, and Colorectal Cancer Risk in Chinese Population - A Case-Control Study

Abstract

Zinc and selenium may protect against colorectal cancer (CRC) progression through their anti-oxidative effects. This study examined the independent and combined effect of dietary zinc and selenium intake, and polymorphisms of the oxidative stress-related genes (superoxide dismutase 1, superoxide dismutase 2, glutathione peroxidase, and catalase) on CRC risk in a Chinese case-control study. A total of 493 cases and 498 sex and age-matched controls were randomly selected from an ongoing case-control study. Dietary information was assessed through face-to-face interviews using a validated food frequency questionnaire. Multiplex PCR-ligase detection reaction was used for genotyping the target SNPs. Multivariable logistic regression was used to estimate the odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence interval (CI). Intake of selenium was found to be inversely associated with CRC risk, while zinc was not associated with CRC risk. The ORs (95% CI) for the highest vs. the lowest quartile were 0.42 (95% CI 0.28, 0.64, P_trend < 0.001) for selenium and 0.96 (95% CI 0.63, 1.47, P_trend = 0.505) for zinc. Combined effect was observed between zinc and SOD1 rs4998557 on CRC risk (P_interaction < 0.05). This study identified a novel diet-gene interaction in the oxidative stress pathway on CRC risk in Chinese population.

Acknowledgments

The funders had no role in the design, analysis or writing of this article. The authors would like to thank the study participants’ participation; without them the study would not have been possible.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest.

Authorship

The authors’ responsibilities were as follows: Luo H. conducted the data collection, did the experiments, analyzed the data and wrote the manuscript. Fang Y.J. was responsible for connecting and coordinating the field work and revising the manuscript. Zhang X., Feng X.L., Zhang N.Q., Abulimiti A. and Huang C.Y. participated in the data collection and entry, and did the experiments. Zhang C.X. constructed the project design, supervised and contributed to the manuscript writing.

Additional information

Funding

This study was supported by Guangdong Basic and Applied Basic Research Foundation (No: 2019A1515011931) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No: 81973020, No: 81871991).