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Adherence to a healthy Nordic food index and breast cancer risk: results from a Swedish cohort study

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Abstract

Background

A healthy Nordic dietary pattern has shown beneficial effects in relation to several chronic diseases. However, no study has evaluated the association between a healthy Nordic food index (HNFI) and risk of breast cancer.

Methods

We conducted a prospective cohort study including 44,296 women, aged 29–49 at baseline in 1991–1992, who completed a food frequency questionnaire at baseline, and have been followed up ever since, through the Swedish Cancer Registry and Cause of Death Registry. Each woman was assigned a HNFI score ranging from 0 to 6. We calculated multivariable relative risks (RRs) and 95 % confidence intervals (CIs) using Poisson regression models with attained age as the underlying timescale. The association between the HNFI and risk of breast cancer was assessed both overall, by menopausal status and by hormone receptor status.

Results

A total of 1,464 breast cancer cases were diagnosed during a median follow-up time of 20 years. A higher adherence to the HNFI was not associated with a lower risk of breast cancer overall, nor of varied hormone receptor status, or when we examining premenopausal and postmenopausal women separately. The multivariable RRs (95 % CI) for breast cancer per 1-point increment in the HNFI were 1.02 (95 % CI 0.98–1.06) for all women, 1.01 (95 % CI 0.95–1.08) for premenopausal women, and 1.02 (95 % CI 0.97–1.07) for postmenopausal women.

Conclusion

Adherence to a HNFI was not associated with breast cancer incidence in this cohort of relatively young women, regardless of menopausal status or hormone receptor status.

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Acknowledgments

This study was funded by the Swedish Cancer Society and the Swedish Research Council (Vetenskapsrådet) Grant K2012-69X-22062-01-3. The authors wish to thank data managers Pouran Almstedt for database administration.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Karolinska Institutet, PO Box 281, 171 77, Stockholm, Sweden

    Yingjun Li, Nina Roswall, Sven Sandin, Peter Ström, Hans-Olov Adami & Elisabete Weiderpass

  2. Department of Epidemiology and Health Statistics, Zhejiang University School of Public Health, Hangzhou, China

    Yingjun Li

  3. Danish Cancer Society Research Center, Copenhagen, Denmark

    Nina Roswall

  4. Department of Epidemiology, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA

    Hans-Olov Adami

  5. Department of Community Medicine, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Tromsø, The Arctic University of Norway, Tromsö, Norway

    Elisabete Weiderpass

  6. Genetic Epidemiology Group, Folkhälsan Research Center, Helsinki, Finland

    Elisabete Weiderpass

  7. The Cancer Registry of Norway, Oslo, Norway

    Elisabete Weiderpass

Authors
  1. Yingjun Li
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  2. Nina Roswall
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Correspondence to Elisabete Weiderpass.

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Li, Y., Roswall, N., Sandin, S. et al. Adherence to a healthy Nordic food index and breast cancer risk: results from a Swedish cohort study. Cancer Causes Control 26, 893–902 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10552-015-0564-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10552-015-0564-x

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