Abstract
Background
The etiology of lung cancer in never smokers is partly unknown. We aimed to assess the effect of fruits and vegetables consumption on lung cancer risk in never smokers.
Methods
We pooled five multicenter case-control studies performed in Northwestern Spain. Cases and controls were all never smokers. All lung cancer cases had anatomopathological confirmed diagnoses. We performed a multivariate logistic regression to analyze the effect of different types of fruits and vegetables consumption on lung cancer risk.
Results
A total of 438 cases and 781 controls were included. We observed that a consumption from one to six times per week shows a negative association with lung cancer risk for: kiwis (OR 0.67; 95%CI 0.46-0.95), oranges (OR 0.55; 95%CI 0.37-0.80), turnip tops (OR 0.48; 95%CI 0.34-0.66), “berza gallega” (OR 0.70; 95%CI 0.51-0.97) and broccoli (OR 0.55; 95%CI 0.35-0.83) compared to less than once a week consumption. On the other hand, we found an increased risk for lung cancer with a daily consumption of tomatoes, carrots and potatoes.
Conclusions
Oranges, kiwis, turnip tops, berza gallega and broccoli may play a protective role on lung cancer development in never smokers while tomatoes, carrots and potatoes might have some association with this disease.
Conflicts of Interest Statement
The authors do not have any conflicts of interest.
Contributions
JAGL and ARR have contributed to the conception and design of the study. JAGL, ARR, MPL and MTD have contributed to acquisition, analysis and interpretation of data. IPL, MPR and LVL have located all the relevant papers to be used in the discussion section. All authors have provided intellectual content and revised the first and successive versions of the manuscript, and have approved the final version to be submitted.