Calcium intake increases risk of prostate cancer among Singapore Chinese.

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Calcium intake increases risk of prostate cancer among Singapore Chinese.

LM, Wong AS, Koh WP, Wang R, Yuan JM, Yu MC.

Cancer Res. 2010 Jun 15;70(12):4941-8. Epub 2010 Jun 1.

PMID: 20516117

Abstract

Consumption of dairy products, the primary source of calcium in Western diets,

has been found to be positively associated with prostate cancer. In an Asian

diet, nondairy foods are the major contributors of calcium. Thus, a study of

dietary calcium and prostate cancer in Asians can better inform on whether

calcium, as opposed to other dairy components, is responsible for the dairy

foods-prostate cancer association.

We examined calcium intake and prostate cancer risk among 27,293 men in the

Singapore Chinese Health Study that was established between 1993 and 1998.

As of December 31, 2007, 298 incident prostate cancer cases had been diagnosed

among the cohort members. Diet was assessed at baseline with a validated

165-item food-frequency questionnaire. It is hypothesized that there is greater

net absorption of calcium in smaller individuals. Therefore, the

calcium-prostate cancer association was also assessed in stratified analyses by

median body mass index.

Vegetables were the largest contributor of daily calcium intake in the study

population. Overall, we observed a modest, statistically nonsignificant 25%

increase in prostate cancer risk for the 4th (median = 659 mg/d) versus 1st

(median = 211 mg/d) quartiles of calcium intake after adjustment for potential

confounders. The association became considerably stronger and achieved

statistical significance (hazard ratio, 2.03; 95% confidence interval,

1.23-3.34; P for trend = 0.01) for men with a below median body mass index (22.9

kg/m(2)). Dietary calcium might be a risk factor for prostate cancer even at

relatively low intake.