Adherence to the WCRF/AICR guidelines can significantly reduce the risk of cancer

Greater adherence to World Cancer Research Fund/American Institute for Cancer Research (WCRF/AICR) recommendations for cancer prevention – which encourage a healthy lifestyle -; is associated with a lower risk of all cancers combined and some individual cancers such as breast cancer. The findings are published in BMC Medicine.

The 2018 WCRF/AICR cancer prevention recommendations aim to reduce cancer risk by encouraging people to maintain a healthy weight, be physically active, and eat a diet rich in whole grains, vegetables, fruits, and beans, but low in extremely processed foods. red and processed meat, sugary drinks and alcohol.

John Mathers and colleagues investigated the relationship between adherence to WCRF/AICR recommendations and cancer risk by analyzing UK Biobank data on 94,778 British adults, who were on average 56 years old. The researchers used self-reported diet and physical activity data -? in addition to measurements of participants’ body mass index and waist circumference – to rate participants’ adherence to recommendations with a maximum score of 7 points. They used cancer registry data to estimate the incidence of new cancers that developed over an average period of 8 years. In their analyses, they took into account age, sex, socioeconomic deprivation, ethnicity and smoking status. The mean adherence score was 3.8 points, and 7,296 participants (8%) developed cancer during the study period.

The authors found that greater adherence to WCRF/AICR recommendations was associated with a lower risk of all cancers combined, with each 1-point increase in recommendation adherence score associated with a 7% lower risk. Compared with those with a compliance score of 3.5 points or less, those with a score of 4.5 points or more had a 16% lower risk for all cancers combined. They also found that each 1-point increase in adherence score was associated with a 10% lower risk of breast cancer, 10% lower risk of colon cancer, 18% lower risk of kidney cancer, 16% lower risk of esophageal cancer. , 22% lower risk of liver cancer, 24% lower risk of ovarian cancer and 30% lower risk of gallbladder cancer.

Findings support adherence to WCRF/AICR recommendations for cancer prevention in the UK, however the authors note that the observational nature of their study does not allow conclusions about a causal relationship between adherence to WCRF/AICR recommendations and risk cancer. The authors add that further research is needed to explore which recommendations may be driving the observed association between adherence to the recommendations and cancer risk.