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Clinical Nutrition

Identification of major dietary patterns in Korean adults and their association with cancer risk in the Cancer Screening Examination Cohort

European Journal of Clinical Nutrition volume 71, pages 1223–1229 (2017)Cite this article

Subjects

Abstract

Background/Objectives:

Cancer is the primary cause of disease-related death in Korea. The purposes of this study were to confirm the major dietary patterns and to evaluate whether there were associations between these identified dietary patterns and the risk of cancer based on data from the Cancer Screening Examination Cohort (CSEC) 2004–2008 of the National Cancer Center (NCC) of Korea.

Subjects/Methods:

This study included 8 024 subjects who completed a written survey on demographics and lifestyles, as well as a 3-day dietary record. Dietary patterns were identified by factor analysis using the principal component analysis method. The associations between the identified dietary patterns and cancer risk were examined using Cox proportional hazards regression models.

Results:

During a median follow-up period of 9.0 years, 425 cancer cases were newly diagnosed. We identified 4 major dietary patterns (‘rice and kimchi’, ‘vegetables and fish’, ‘fruits and dairy’, and ‘meats and sweets’). There was a negative relation between ‘rice and kimchi’ pattern and the risk of non-gastrointestinal cancers only (highest vs. lowest tertile; multivariate-adjusted hazard ratio=0.60, 95% confidence interval=0.41, 0.88). The ‘fruits and dairy’ pattern tended to decrease the risk of cancer, and the preventive effect was noted only for gastrointestinal cancer risk. However, there was no association after adjusting for covariates.

Conclusions:

The traditional dietary pattern with high consumption of rice, kimchi, soybean paste and vegetables may decrease the cancer risk among Koreans, and strategies based on the dietary pattern may effectively reduce the cancer risk.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) grant funded by the Korea government (MSIP) (NRF-2014R1A2A2A01003138).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Clinical Nutrition, Research Institute & Hospital, National Cancer Center, Goyang-si, Republic of Korea

    G-A Wie, Y-A Cho, H-h Kang, K A Ryu & M-K Yoo

  2. Division of Cancer Epidemiology & Management, National Cancer Center, Goyang-si, Republic of Korea

    J Kim

  3. Department of Preventive Medicine & Institute of Environmental Medicine, Seoul National University College of Medicine, Seoul, Republic of Korea

    S Shin

  4. Department of Nutritional Sciences, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT, USA

    O K Chun

  5. Graduate School of Public Health and Institute of Health and Environment, Seoul National University, Seoul, Republic of Korea

    O K Chun & H Joung

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  1. G-A Wie
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Correspondence to G-A Wie or H Joung.

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Wie, GA., Cho, YA., Kang, Hh. et al. Identification of major dietary patterns in Korean adults and their association with cancer risk in the Cancer Screening Examination Cohort. Eur J Clin Nutr 71, 1223–1229 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/ejcn.2017.6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/ejcn.2017.6

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