A Prospective Study of Dietary Acrylamide Intake and the Risk of Endometrial, Ovarian, and Breast Cancer

Abstract

Background: Acrylamide, a probable human carcinogen, was detected in various heat-treated carbohydrate-rich foods in 2002. The few epidemiologic studies done thus far have not shown a relationship with cancer. Our aim was to investigate the association between acrylamide intake and endometrial, ovarian, and breast cancer risk. Methods: The Netherlands Cohort Study on diet and cancer includes 62,573 women, aged 55-69 years. At baseline (1986), a random subcohort of 2,589 women was selected using a case cohort analysis approach for analysis. The acrylamide intake of subcohort members and cases was assessed with a food frequency questionnaire and was based on chemical analysis of all relevant Dutch foods. Subgroup analyses were done for never-smokers to eliminate the influence of smoking; an important source of acrylamide. Results: After 11.3 years of follow-up, 327, 300, and 1,835 cases of endometrial, ovarian, and breast cancer,

Dietary acrylamide intake and estrogen and progesterone receptor-defined postmenopausal breast cancer risk

“…If acrylamide were to affect these systems, it may primarily be a risk factor for ER and PR positive breast cancer, as reproduction-related exposures seem to be more strongly associated with the risk of receptor-positive breast cancer [3]. In a previous analysis, we observed no association with overall breast cancer risk [9]. Here, we aim to investigate the association between dietary acrylamide intake and postmenopausal breast cancer risk in receptor-defined subgroups in a large prospective cohort study.…”

“…This mechanism has been the focus of most of the toxicological acrylamide research. Recently, some, but not all, epidemiological studies found a positive association between dietary acrylamide exposure and the risk of strongly endocrinerelated cancers (ovarian, endometrial, and ER positive breast cancer) [8,9], which may suggest a different carcinogenic pathway. One of the hypothesized mechanisms behind acrylamide-induced carcinogenicity, other than genotoxicity, is modulation of sex hormone systems [10].…”

Dietary Maillard Reaction Products: Implications for Human Health and Disease

“…The metabolite of acrylamide, glycidamide, can form adducts with haemoglobin and DNA. Several large scale epidemiological studies have reported no link between dietary acrylamide and cancer, but one prospective study has reported a link between dietary acrylamide intake and endometrial and ovarian cancer (but not breast cancer) in postmenopausal women (Hogervorst et al 2007). …”

Associations of Acrylamide Intake with Circulating Levels of Sex Hormones and Prolactin in Premenopausal Japanese Women

“…When acrylamide levels were lower than the quantification limit, a value half of the quantification limit was assigned because they may still contain some acrylamide. However, dairy products and cereals, potatoes, meat, fish, and vegetables when boiled or raw were assigned values of zero, following previous studies (31,32). As the acrylamide concentration of steamed white rice was reported to be less than 0.5 ng/g, this was also regarded to be a value of zero.…”

“…Detailed description of the food-frequency questionnaire, its reliability, and validity for calculating nutrient intakes has been published previously (33). Although the validity of the values for acrylamide intake could not be directly tested, we examined correlations between the questionnaire and 12 daily diet records kept over a 1-year period for the major food sources of acrylamide, like other studies (31,32); the Spearman correlation coefficients were 0.49 for potatoes, 0.57 for coffee, 0.62 for meats and meat products, and 0.49 for vegetables.…”