Fruit and vegetable consumption and cancer mortality in the Caerphilly study.

We investigated whether the consumption of fruit and vegetables lowered cancer mortality in a cohort of 2112 Welsh men ages 45-69 years (The Caerphilly Study), which was followed-up for 13.8 years. At baseline (between 1979 and 1983), participants completed a 56- item food frequency questionnaire from which the consumption of fruit and vegetables was calculated. Relative risks (RR) were estimated with Cox proportional hazard analysis, with death from various types of cancer as a dependent variable, and fruit, vegetables, vitamin C, a-carotene, dietary fiber, and potential confounders as independent variables. Mean consumption of vegetables and fruit at baseline was 118 g/day and 83 g/day, respectively. During follow-up 1 14 men died from cancer, including 51 men who died from respiratory tract cancer and 45 men who died from digestive tract cancer. Fruit consumption and the intake of dietary fiber were inversely related to respiratory tract cancer, but after adjustment for potential confounders including age, smoking, and social class, the association with fruit consumption became nonsignificant. Vegetable and fruit consumption was, independently from other risk factors, inversely related to mortality from cancer of the digestive tract (P for trend = 0.021), mainly due to an inverse association with fruit consumption (RR for the highest quartile versus the lowest was 0.3; 95% CI, 0.1-0.8). Vitamin C, (3-carotene, and dietary fiber were not significantly associated with cancers of the digestive tract. Vegetable and fruit consumption was also inversely related to all-cause cancer mortality, and the strongest association was observed for fruit consumption (RR in the highest versus lowest quartile was 0.5; 95% CI, 0.3- 1.0). Consumption of vegetables and particularly the consumption of fruit could considerably lower the risk of dying from cancer in middle-aged men

Erratum: Flavonoid intake and long-term risk of coronary heart disease and cancer in the seven countries study.

To determine whether flavonoid intake explains differences in mortality rates from chronic diseases between populations. DESIGN: Cross-cultural correlation study. SETTING/PARTICIPANTS: Sixteen cohorts of the Seven Countries Study in whom flavonoid intake at baseline around 1960 was estimated by flavonoid analysis of equivalent food composites that represented the average diet in the cohorts. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Mortality from coronary heart disease, cancer (various sites), and all causes in the 16 cohorts after 25 years of follow-up. RESULTS: Average intake of antioxidant flavonoids was inversely associated with mortality from coronary heart disease and explained about 25 f the variance in coronary heart disease rates in the 16 cohorts. In multivariate analysis, intake of saturated fat (73 P = 0.0001), flavonoid intake (8°P = .01), and percentage of smokers per cohort (9 P = .03) explained together, independent of intake of alcohol and antioxidant vitamins, 90 f the variance in coronary heart disease rates. Flavonoid intake was not independently associated with mortality from other causes. CONCLUSIONS: Average flavonoid intake may partly contribute to differences in coronary heart disease mortality across populations, but it does not seem to be an important determinant of cancer mortality