Fruit and Vegetable Consumption and the Risk of Prostate Cancer: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Abstract

Background

Emerging researches has evaluated whether fruit and vegetable consumption reduce the risk of prostate cancer. However, the conclusions of published articles remained confusing. Thus, we conducted an updated systematic review and meta-analysis to confirm the relationship of fruit and vegetable consumption and the risk of prostate cancer.

Method

We searched PubMed, EMBASE, Web of Science and Chinese National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) up to September 1, 2020. We finally included 17 cohort studies related to fruit or vegetable intake after rigid quality assessment and checking references of the retrieved articles and relevant reviews. Newcastle–Ottawa scale was adopted to assess the quality of studies and random effect model with RR and 95% CI were used to assess the risk.

Results

No significant relationship was found between fruit consumption (RR = 1.00, 95% CI = 0.94–1.05) and vegetable consumption (RR = 0.98, 95% CI = 0.94–1.02) and the risk of prostate cancer. No significant heterogeneity or publication bias was identified.

Conclusion

Our updated meta-analysis demonstrated that fruit and vegetable consumption can barely reduce the risk of prostate cancer with several limitations. Further clinical and basic researches are eagerly awaited to confirm our results and clarify the potential biological mechanisms.

Conflicts of interest

The authors have declared no conflicts of interest.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by The Natural Science Foundation of Ningbo (202003N4258).