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Background: Many observational studies support the recommendation to eat sufficient amounts of fruit and vegetables as part of a healthy diet., Objective: The present study aimed to investigate the association between consumption of fruit, vegetables, and olive oil and the incidence of coronary heart disease (CHD) in 29,689 women enrolled between 1993 and 1998 in 5 European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC) cohorts in northern (Turin and Varese), central (Florence), and southern (Naples and Ragusa) Italy., Design: Baseline dietary, anthropometric, and lifestyle characteristics were collected. Major events of CHD (fatal and nonfatal myocardial infarction and coronary revascularization) were identified through a review of clinical records. Analyses were stratified by center and adjusted for hypertension, smoking, education, menopause, physical activity, anthropometric measures, nonalcohol energy, alcohol, total meat, vegetables in analyses for fruit, and fruit in analyses for vegetables., Results: During a mean follow-up of 7.85 y, 144 major CHD events were identified. A strong reduction in CHD risk among women in the highest quartile of consumption of leafy vegetables (hazard ratio: 0.54; 95% CI: 0.33, 0.90; P for trend = 0.03) and olive oil (hazard ratio: 0.56; 95% CI: 0.31, 0.99; P for trend = 0.04) was found. In contrast, no association emerged between fruit consumption and CHD risk., Conclusion: An inverse association between increasing consumption of leafy vegetables and olive oil and CHD risk emerged in this large cohort of Italian women.

We investigated the association of melanoma risk with food consumption in a northern Italian population in which disease risk was shown to correlate with linoleic acid and soluble carbohydrates intake. We collected information regarding the habitual consumption of 188 food items in 59 patients with newly diagnosed cutaneous melanoma and 59 sex- and age-matched population controls. In the unadjusted analyses, the intake of several foodstuffs directly or inversely correlated with melanoma risk. In multivariate analysis adjusting for several potential confounders, risk correlated directly with vegetable oil intake and inversely with consumption of crispbreads and rusks. Overall, most of the food items rich in linoleic acid and soluble carbohydrates were unrelated to disease risk. Despite the limited statistical precision of the point estimates, these findings seem to indicate that consumption of specific foods may influence melanoma risk.

Objectives: Pizza eating has been favourably related to the risk of cardiovascular disease, but the data are limited. To evaluate the potential role of pizza consumption on the risk of acute myocardial infarction (AMI), we considered data from an Italian study., Design: We conducted a hospital-based case-control study on 507 cases of nonfatal AMI and 478 controls in Milan, Italy, between 1995 and 1999., Results: The multivariate odds ratios were 0.78 for occasional, 0.62 for regular and 0.44 for frequent eaters. The estimates were similar across strata of age, sex, smoking and other major covariates., Conclusions: Some of the ingredients of pizza have been shown to have a favourable influence on the risk of cardiovascular disease. However, there is no single explanation for the present findings. Pizza may in fact represent a general indicator of Italian diet, that has been shown to have potential cardiovascular benefits.

Background: An association between fats and colorectal carcinoma has been suggested, but the epidemiologic evidence by type of dietary fat is far less clear. Colorectal carcinoma rates have been relatively low in Mediterranean countries compared with most other Western countries, but the components of the Mediterranean diet responsible for this favorable pattern are unclear., Methods: The relationship between various added (seasoning) fats and colorectal carcinoma risk was investigated using data from a case-control study conducted between January 1992 and June 1996 in six Italian areas. Cases were 1953 patients with incident, histologically confirmed colorectal carcinoma (1225 of the colon and 728 of the rectum) admitted to the major teaching and general hospitals in the study areas. Controls were 4154 subjects with no history of cancer who were admitted to hospitals in the same catchment areas for acute, nonneoplastic diseases unrelated to the the digestive tract and requiring no long term modifications of diet. Dietary habits were investigated using a validated food frequency questionnaire including 78 items. Lipid intake was estimated by taking into account the content of seasoning lipids in different dishes, the frequency of consumption and portion size of each dish, and individual fat intake patterns., Results: The odds ratios (OR) for successive tertiles of olive oil intake, compared with the lowest one, were 0.87 (95% confidence interval [CI], 0.75-1.01) and 0.83 (95% CI, 0.70-0.99) (chi2trend = 4.49, P = 0.03) when colorectal carcinoma was analyzed as a whole, 0.82 (95% CI, 0.68-0.98) and 0.81 (95% CI, 0.66-0.99) (chi2trend = 4.05, P = 0.04) for colon carcinoma, and 0.96 (95% CI, 0.77-1.19) and 0.88 (95% CI, 0.66-1.12) for rectal carcinoma. For specific seed oils (including sunflower, maize, peanut, and soya), the OR for colorectal carcinoma was 0.91 in the highest tertile of intake, and the corresponding values were 1.01 for mixed seed oils and 0.93 for butter. None of these estimates was significantly different from the unity. Allowance for vegetable intake attenuated the apparent protection from olive oil consumption (OR, 0.94 for colon and 0.97 for rectum for the highest tertile), which still was apparent in younger subjects (OR, 0.82 for colon and 0.69 for rectum)., Conclusions: In this study, seasoning fats did not appear to increase the risk of colorectal carcinoma, and there was little evidence for a differential effect by fat type. If such a differential effect exists, it is minor and could favor olive oil.

The relationship between consumption of fat in seasoning and the risk of pancreatic cancer has been considered in a case-control study conducted in Italy between 1983 and 1995 on 362 pancreatic cancer cases and 1502 controls in hospital for acute, not neoplastic, non-digestive tract disorders. Subjective scores (low, intermediate, high) for the intake of butter, margarine and oil were used to evaluate the use of fat in seasoning. No material association was observed for butter or margarine. The score for oil (mainly olive oil) intake was inversely related to the risk of pancreatic cancer: the multivariate odds ratios were 0.76 for the intermediate, and 0.60 for the highest score of intake, and the trend in risk was significant. These findings support the hypothesis that (olive) oil may have a comparatively more favourable impact on the risk of pancreatic cancer than other types of seasoning fats.

The cross-sectional association between consumption of various fats (eg, butter, olive oil, and vegetable oil) and risk factors for coronary heart disease was analyzed in a sample of 4903 Italian men and women 20 to 59 years of age. The intake of fats was ascertained by an interviewer-administered questionnaire. Increased consumption of butter was associated with significantly higher blood pressure and serum cholesterol and glucose levels for men; in women only the association with glucose reached statistical significance. In both sexes consumption of olive oil and vegetable oil was inversely associated with serum cholesterol and glucose levels and systolic blood pressure. These findings were adjusted for confounding effects of other risk factors for cardiovascular disease. These cross-sectional findings from a large population sample suggest that consumption of butter may detrimentally affect coronary risk factors, while polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fats may be associated with a lower coronary risk profile.