Abstract
Background
Vegetable and fruit consumption may have a protective effect against several types of cancer. However, evidence suggesting that increased intake of vegetables and fruits, their subtypes, or the antioxidant nutrients they contain in abundance decreases the risk of bladder cancer is limited.
Methods
This study included 80,952 participants from the Japan Public Health Center-based Prospective Study, who responded to a food frequency questionnaire in a 5-year follow-up survey in 1995–1998 and were followed up until December 2015 to investigate the associations between intake of vegetables and fruits, their subtypes, or the antioxidant nutrients and bladder cancer risk using Cox proportional hazards regression models.
Results
Within 1,287,514 person-years of follow-up, 401 bladder cancer cases (307 men and 94 women) were diagnosed. No association was found between intake of total vegetable and fruit, total vegetable, total fruit, subtypes of vegetables and fruits, or antioxidant nutrients and bladder cancer risk in both men and women, even in the analyses conducted among men stratified by smoking status.
Conclusions
In this population, the consumption of vegetables and fruits was not associated with the risk of bladder cancer.
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Data availability
For information on how to submit an application for gaining access to JPHC data and/or biospecimens, please follow the instructions at https://epi.ncc.go.jp/en/jphc/805/8155.html.
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Acknowledgements
The members of the Japan Public Health Center-based Prospective Study are listed at the following site (as of April 2020): https://epi.ncc.go.jp/en/jphc/781/8510.html. We would like to thank the Akita, Iwate, Nagano and Okinawa Cancer Registries for providing their incidence data.
Funding
This study was supported by the National Cancer Center Research and Development Fund (since 2010), a Grant-in-Aid for Cancer Research from the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare of Japan (from 1989 to 2010) and MAFF Commissioned project study (JPJ009842).
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NN, TS and LZ designed the work that led to the submission. NS and TS acquired the data. All authors participated in the interpretation of data. NN carried out the statistical analyses and drafted the manuscript. TS, LZ, TK, NS, M Iwasaki, M Inoue, TY and ST critically revised the manuscript. ST is the principal investigator of the JPHC Study. All authors approved the final manuscript as submitted and agreed to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.
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The study was conducted in compliance with the provisions of the Declaration of Helsinki. The study protocol was approved by the institutional review board of the National Cancer Center, Tokyo, Japan and by the Ethical Review Board of Osaka University, Osaka, Japan. The participants were informed of the study objectives, and those who completed the survey questionnaire were regarded as consenting to participation.
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Narii, N., Sobue, T., Zha, L. et al. Vegetable and fruit intake and the risk of bladder cancer: Japan Public Health Center-based prospective study. Br J Cancer 126, 1647–1658 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41416-022-01739-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41416-022-01739-0
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