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Food and health

Intake of milk and other dairy products and the risk of bladder cancer: a pooled analysis of 13 cohort studies

European Journal of Clinical Nutrition volume 74, pages 28–35 (2020)Cite this article

Subjects

Abstract

Background

Inconsistent associations between milk and other dairy product consumption and bladder cancer (BC) have been reported. We aimed to investigate possible associations with BC risk for total and individual dairy products by bringing together the world’s data on this topic.

Methods

Thirteen cohort studies, included in the BLadder cancer Epidemiology and Nutritional Determinants (BLEND) study, provided data for 3590 BC cases and 593,637 non-cases. Associations between milk and other dairy product consumption and BC risk were investigated using Cox proportional hazard regression analyses stratified by study center and adjusted for potential confounders.

Results

Overall, total ‘other’ dairy product consumption was not associated with BC risk (HR comparing highest with lowest tertile: 0.97 (95% CI: 0.87–1.07; ptrend = 0.52) and likewise no association was observed for either liquid milk, processed milk, cream, cheese or icecream. However, an inverse association was observed between yoghurt consumption and BC risk when comparing those in the moderate (25–85 g/day) and high categories (>85 g/day) with non-consumers, with multivariate HR of 0.85 (95% CI: 0.75–0.96) and 0.88 (95% CI: 0.78–0.98), respectively.

Conclusions

We found no evidence of association between either total or individual dairy products and BC risk, but suggestive evidence that consumption of yoghurt may be associated with a decreased risk.

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Acknowledgements

We gratefully acknowledge all principal investigators for their willingness to participate in this jointed project. EYY thanks to the financial support from China Scholarship Council (No. 201706310135).

Funding

This work was partly funded by the Word Cancer Research Fund International (WCRF 2012/590) and European Commission.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Complex Genetics and Epidemiology, NUTRIM School for Nutrition and Translational Research in Metabolism, Maastricht University, Universiteitssingel 40, 6200 MD Maastricht, The Netherlands, Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands

    Merab Acham, Anke Wesselius, Frits H. M. van Osch, Evan Yi-Wen Yu & Maurice P. Zeegers

  2. Institute of Cancer and Genomic Sciences, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK

    Frits H. M. van Osch

  3. Department of Epidemiology, Schools for Oncology and Developmental Biology and Public Health and Primary Care, Maastricht University Medical Centre, Maastricht, The Netherlands

    Piet A. van den Brandt

  4. Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle, WA, USA

    Emily White

  5. Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Medical Epidemiology, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden

    Hans-Olov Adami & Elisabete Weiderpass

  6. Clinical Effectiveness Research Group, Institute of Health and Society, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway

    Hans-Olov Adami, Graham G. Giles & Roger L. Milne

  7. Department of Research, Cancer Registry of Norway, Institute of Population-Based Cancer Research, Oslo, Norway

    Elisabete Weiderpass

  8. Genetic Epidemiology Group, Folkhälsan Research Center and Faculty of Medicine, Helsinki University, Helsinki, Finland

    Elisabete Weiderpass

  9. Department of Community Medicine, University of Tromsø, The Arctic University of Norway, Tromsø, Norway

    Elisabete Weiderpass

  10. Cancer Epidemiology and Intelligence Division, Cancer Council Victoria, Melbourne, VIC, Australia

    Maree Brinkman, Graham G. Giles & Roger L. Milne

  11. Centre for Epidemiology and Biostatistics, School of Population and Global Health, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC, Australia

    Graham G. Giles

  12. School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, Monash University Faculty of Medicine, Nursing & Health Sciences, Melbourne, VIC, Australia

    Roger L. Milne

  13. CAPHRI School for Public Health and Primary Care, University of Maastricht, Maastricht, The Netherlands

    Maurice P. Zeegers

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  1. Merab Acham
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Contributions

Study conception and design: AW and MPZ; analyses and interpretation of data: MA; drafting of the manuscript: MA; revised the manuscript: AW, FVO, EYY and MPZ; provided the data: PAB, EW, HOA, EW, MB, GGG and RLM; approved the manuscript: all the authors.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Anke Wesselius.

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The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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Each participating study has been approved by the local ethic committee.

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Acham, M., Wesselius, A., van Osch, F.H.M. et al. Intake of milk and other dairy products and the risk of bladder cancer: a pooled analysis of 13 cohort studies. Eur J Clin Nutr 74, 28–35 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41430-019-0453-6

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