Association of calorie and carbohydrate intake with tumour grade in early diagnosis of breast cancer: a case–control study

Abstract

Background

This study aimed to investigate the association of calorie and carbohydrate intake with tumour grade in early detection of breast cancer (BC) in Iranian women.

Materials and methods

This case–control study carried out on 62 women with high grade BC and 93 women with low grade BC. Information about confounding variables was collected through a questionnaire. Dietary intake of calorie and macronutrients was assessed by a valid 122-item semi-quantitative food frequency questionnaire.

Results

Individuals with high grade BC had significantly lower calorie (0.16, 0.04–0.61) and higher carbohydrate intake (4.02; 1.28–12.63) compared with those with low grade BC after controlling for age. This correlation remained significant after adjusting for confounding factors.

Conclusion

Our results showed that lower intakes of calorie and higher carbohydrate are directly related to the high grade of tumour at the early detection of people with BC after modifying a wide range of confounding factors.

Keywords:

• Breast cancer
• macronutrients
• calorie intake
• tumour grade

Acknowledgments

This project has been extracted from the Master’s thesis. In this regard, I thank the officials of the Cancer Research Centre of Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences in Tehran for their contribution to the project implementation and for their financial support.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).