Fruit and Vegetable Consumption and Risk of Distal Gastric Cancer in the Shanghai Women's and Men's Health Studies

Results from case-control and cohort studies of the association between fruit and vegetable consumption and gastric cancer risk have been inconsistent. Cases for the current study consisted of incident distal gastric cancers identified between 1996 and 2007 among members of the Shanghai Women's Health Study (n = 206) and the Shanghai Men's Health Study (n = 132). Intakes of fruits, vegetables, and select micronutrients were assessed on the basis of validated food frequency questionnaires. Multivariate-adjusted hazards ratios and 95% confidence intervals were calculated by Cox proportional hazards regression. For women, no associations were found between gastric cancer risk and the highest intake of fruits (hazard ratio (HR) = 1.02, 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.68, 1.54; P(trend) = 0.87) or vegetables (HR = 0.89, 95% CI: 0.60, 1.31; P(trend) = 0.32). For men, increased fruit intake was associated with decreased risk of distal gastric cancer (for the highest quartile of intake, HR = 0.50, 95% CI: 0.29, 0.84; P(trend) = 0.004), but no association was seen with increased intake of vegetables (HR = 1.00, 95% CI: 0.59, 1.68; P(trend) = 0.87). The inverse association with fruit intake for men was more evident among ever smokers (P(trend) = 0.001) than never smokers (P(trend) = 0.67). No associations between dietary intakes of select antioxidant micronutrients were seen for men or women. Fruit intake is inversely associated with distal gastric cancer risk among men in Shanghai, China.