Epidemiology

Associations between calcium and magnesium intake and the risk of incident oesophageal cancer: an analysis of the NIH-AARP Diet and Health Study prospective cohort

British Journal of Cancer volume 122, pages1857–1864(2020)Cite this article

Subjects

Abstract

Background

Risk reduction through dietary modifications is an adjunct strategy for prevention of oesophageal cancer, a leading cause of cancer-related mortality and morbidity worldwide. We aimed to estimate the association between calcium and magnesium intakes and incident oesophageal cancer (OC).

Methods

We conducted a retrospective analysis of the NIH-AARP Diet and Health Study prospective cohort. We used multivariable Cox proportional hazard modeling to estimate the association between total intakes and incident OC overall and by histology (oesophageal squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) and adenocarcinoma (OAC)). Sensitivity and stratified analyses were performed.

Results

Among 536,359 included respondents, 1414 incident OCs occurred over 6.5 million person-years follow-up time. Increasing dietary calcium intake was associated with an adjusted 32–41% lower risk of OSCC compared to the lowest quartile (p-trend 0.01). There was a positive association between increasing magnesium intake and OAC risk, but only among participants with low calcium:magnesium intake ratios (p-trend 0.04). There was a significant interaction with smoking status.

Conclusions

Based on a retrospective analysis of the NIH-AARP Diet and Health Study prospective cohort, dietary intakes of calcium and magnesium were significantly associated with risk of OSCC and, among certain participants, OAC, respectively. If validated, these findings could inform dietary modifications among at-risk individuals. Mechanistic investigations would provide additional insight.

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Fig. 1: Analytic Cohort Construction.

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Acknowledgements

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Author information

Affiliations

  1. Division of Gastroenterology, Hepatology, and Nutrition, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, TN, USA

    Shailja C. Shah & Richard M. Peek Jr.

  2. Department of Veterans Affairs, Tennessee Valley Healthcare System, Nashville, TN, USA

    Shailja C. Shah & Christianne Roumie

  3. Division of Epidemiology, Vanderbilt Ingram Cancer Center, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, TN, USA

    Qi Dai, Xiangzhu Zhu & Martha J. Shrubsole

  4. Department of Medicine, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, TN, USA

    Christianne Roumie

Authors
  1. Shailja C. Shah
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  2. Qi Dai
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  3. Xiangzhu Zhu
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  4. Richard M. Peek Jr.
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  5. Christianne Roumie
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  6. Martha J. Shrubsole
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Contributions

S.C.S.: study concept, study design, statistical analysis, data interpretation, drafting of paper; Q.D.: data interpretation, critical review of the paper for important intellectual content; R.P., C.R.: critical review of the paper for important intellectual content; M.J.S.: study design, data interpretation, critical review of the paper for important intellectual content.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Shailja C. Shah.

Ethics declarations

Ethics approval and consent to participate

The study was approved by the Special Studies Institutional Review Board of the US National Cancer Institute (NCI). Original consent from participants was obtained from investigators for the NIH-AARP Diet and Health Study at enrolment. No new data collection or participant contact occurred for the purposes of this study.

Consent for publication

Not applicable. No individual-level data are included in this paper.

Data availability

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the NIH-AARP Diet and Health Study. Restrictions apply to the availability of these data, which were used under license for this study. Data are available with the permission of the NIH AARP.

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

Funding information

Research reported in this publication was supported by the Agency for Healthcare Research (AHRQ) and Quality and Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) under Award Number K12 HS026395, awarded to SCS. The content is solely the responsibility of the listed authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of AHRQ or PCORI.

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Shah, S.C., Dai, Q., Zhu, X. et al. Associations between calcium and magnesium intake and the risk of incident oesophageal cancer: an analysis of the NIH-AARP Diet and Health Study prospective cohort. Br J Cancer 122, 1857–1864 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41416-020-0818-6

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