Dietary intake of fruits and vegetables and overall survival in non-Hodgkin lymphoma

Abstract

In a cohort of 301 patients with non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL), we examined whether the pre-diagnostic consumption of fruits and vegetables, or of nutrients concentrated in fruits and vegetables, was associated with overall survival (OS). Proportional hazards models were used to calculate hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for all-cause mortality. A total of 91 deaths occurred in the patient cohort over a median follow-up period of 8.2 years. No association with OS was detected for a dietary pattern characterized by high intakes of fruits, vegetables and starch; fruit intake; vegetable intake; or nutrient intake in patients diagnosed with overall NHL, follicular lymphoma or diffuse large B-cell lymphoma. Higher intakes of carotene-rich vegetables (HR = 0.4 [0.2–1.0]; p_trend = 0.05) and α-carotene (HR_{T3 vs. T1} = 0.4 [0.2–0.9]; p_trend = 0.03) were associated with better OS among ever smokers. Overall, our data suggest that the intake of fruits and vegetables prior to diagnosis is not associated with OS in patients with NHL.

Keywords::

• Fruits and vegetables
• non-Hodgkin lymphoma
• diet
• cancer survivors
• food frequency questionnaire
• survival cohort
• carotenoids

Potential conflict of interest:

Disclosure forms provided by the authors are available with the full text of this article at www.informahealthcare.com/lal

This research was supported by research grant 99B083 from the American Institute for Cancer Research and, in part, by grants CA94770 and CA100555 from the National Cancer Institute.