Late effect of the food consumption on colorectal cancer rate

Abstract

Studies have suggested that higher meat intake may increase colorectal cancer (CRC) risk while higher vegetable intake may reduce this risk. There is a substantial lag between the time of exposure to a risk factor (or protective factor) and incidence of cancer. For CRC, in particular, the time from formation of adenoma to occurrence of CRC takes from 10 to 15 years, or even more. This study correlates food disappearance data per capita for vegetable and meat with future age-adjusted CRC rates in USA. The lag weights, with a high confidence, showed that there is a positive correlation between the red meat availability and CRC age-adjusted incidence rates with a lag of at least 17 years and an Almon polynomial degree of 2. Conversely, there was a negative correlation between vegetables availability and future age-adjusted incidence rates of CRC.

Graphical Abstract

Keywords:

• Colorectal cancer
• incidence
• risk factor
• food availability

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to acknowledge Dr Kim Sydnor and Dr Farin Kamangar for their continuous support.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported in part by funding from NIGMS/NIH, grant number [UL1 GM118973].