Dietary Inflammatory Index, Alternative Healthy Eating Index-2010, Mediterranean Diet Score and the risk of pancreatic cancer.

Background: Previous studies of dietary patterns and pancreatic cancer risk have been inconclusive; we aimed to investigate the association of Mediterranean Diet Score (MDS), Alternative Healthy Eating Index-2010 (AHEI-2010), and Dietary Inflammatory Index (DII®) with risk of pancreatic cancer.
Methods: We used data from the Melbourne Collaborative Cohort Study including 33,690 men and women aged 40-69 years at recruitment in 1990-1994. A total of 258 incident cases of pancreatic cancer was identified over an average of 23.7 years of follow-up. Hazard ratios (HR) were estimated using Cox regression, with age as the underlying time metric, adjusting for potential confounders including sex, height, country of birth, education, socio-economic position, physical activity, energy intake, smoking status, pack-years smoking, years since quitting smoking, and alcohol intake.
Results: A healthier diet as assessed by the AHEI-2010 was associated with a lower risk of pancreatic cancer [HR _{Quartile4 vs Quartile1} = 0.58; 95%CI 0.40 - 0.85; p for trend 0.003]. Weaker but consistent evidence was observed for the other indexes [DII® HR _{Quartile4 vs Quartile1} = 1.30; 95%CI 0.82 - 2.06; p for trend 0.1], [MDS HR _{Category3 vs Category1} = 0.79; 95%CI 0.49 - 1.26; p for trend 0.06].
Conclusion: Adherence to a healthier diet, as assessed by the AHEI-2010, may reduce the risk of pancreatic cancer.
Competing Interests: Conflict of interest Authors have no conflicts of interest to disclose.
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