In a case-control study on lung cancer, risk was analysed in relation to smoking habits and frequency of vegetable and fruit consumption. Lung cancer cases in West Sweden and population controls were interviewed using a questionnaire where the frequency of consumption of dietary items and smoking habits were assessed. The material presented comprises 177 female and 359 male confirmed cases of lung cancer and 916 population controls. There was a dose-response relationship in regard to the number of cigarettes smoked and the number of years smoked, the latter factor being more important. After adjustment for number of cigarettes smoked/day and number of years smoked, the risk for those who seldom consumed vegetables was about twice of that among those who consumed vegetables frequently, both among nonsmokers, smokers and former smokers. This risk increase in relation to vegetable consumption also was present for different smoking categories. A similar tendency, although less pronounced, was found for fruit consumption. The results demonstrate that dietary factors are related to the risk for lung cancer, although smoking is the dominant risk factor. ' 2005 Wiley-Liss, Inc.Key words: smoking duration; cigarette consumption; fruit Research during the last 60 years has convincingly demonstrated that smoking is a major agent related to risk for lung cancer. Ever since the pioneering studies by M€ uller 1 and Shairer and Sch€ oniger 2 in Germany and the fundamental work by Doll and Hill in the UK, 3 a large number of investigations have shown dose-related risks and a reduction of risk after cessation. It has also been demonstrated that the risk related to smoking varies in different populations from a low 15% among Chinese females to a high 95% in Western men. Differences in population smoking habits such as inhalation or butt length could explain such findings, but other data suggest that variations in environmental factors influence the risk. 4 An important such factor is the diet.Since the first study on the influence of diet on lung cancer risk was published in 1977, a plethora of investigations have been published including prospective studies and pooled analysis of data. 5-7 A general finding is that frequent consumption of vegetables and fruit reduces the risk, [8][9][10] although there are variations between the different studies regarding the relative role of these items and differences in risk between genders have been found. Fried meat, red meat and milk have been reported to be risk factors. [11][12][13][14][15] Data have previously been reported from a lung cancer study in West Sweden in terms of data from part of the male population in the study, 16,17 data on bird keeping 18 and on the importance of vegetables, fruit and milk for the whole population. 19 These reports demonstrated an increase in risk among those consuming vegetables and fruit less frequently as well as among those frequently consuming milk. In view of the discrepancies in previous studies regarding the influence of vegetable/fruit consump...