Olive oil consumption and risk of breast cancer in the Canary Islands: a population-based case–control study

Abstract

Back ground: Breast cancer mortality and incidence rates in the Canary Islands, and particularly in Gran Canaria, are higher than those in the rest of Spain. Objectives and design: A case -control study was designed to assess the role of differential fatty acid intakes and olive oil consumption on breast cancer risk in the Canary Islands. The study was conducted between 1999 and 2001, including a total of 755 women: 291 incident cases with confirmed breast cancer and 464 controls randomly selected from the Canary Island Nutrition Survey (ENCA). A semiquantitative food-frequency questionnaire was completed and potential confounders were adjusted using unconditional logistic regression. Results: Compared to the first quintile of intake, the highest quintile of monounsaturated fat intake was significantly related to a lower risk of breast cancer (odds ratio ¼ 0.52; 95% CI 0.30-0.92). Regarding olive oil, the odds ratio for women in the three upper quintiles of consumption ($ 8.8 g/day) was 0.27 (95% CI 0.17-0.42). Conclusion: Our results support the protective role of olive oil consumption on breast cancer among Canaries women.

Adipose Tissue Fatty Acids in Breast Cancer Patients versus Healthy Control Women from Crete

“…The observed negative relation between breast cancer risk and adipose tissue monounsaturated fatty acids in the present study is in congruence with some other epidemiologic studies [22,23] . However, the epidemiologic evidence for the role of monounsaturated fat intake on breast cancer risk is still inconclusive [24] .…”

Cancers

“…The food analysis showed that olive oil was responsible for the risk reduction effect. Two more recent case-control studies support the observations of these earlier studies [78,79].…”

Background Review Paper on Total Fat, Fatty Acid Intake and Cancers

“…The analysis based on foods showed that olive oil is responsible for the risk reduction. Two recent case-control studies support the observation of the first studies [Garcia-Segovia et al, 2006;Bessaoud et al, 2008].…”

“…Thus, it was concluded that the effect of SFA was similar to that of total fat. More recently, results from 2 cohort studies [Thiébaut et al, 2007;Sieri et al, 2008] showed a significant association, which was observed neither in a Swedish cohort study [Löf et al, 2007] nor in 2 case-control studies [Garcia-Segovia et al, 2006;Wang et al, 2008].…”