Coffee consumption and risk of gastric and pancreatic cancer - A prospective cohort study

Abstract

Only few prospective studies have examined the association between coffee consumption and risk of gastric and pancreatic cancer. This study is designed to evaluate this relationship among Finns, whose coffee consumption is the highest in the world. A total of 60,041 Finnish men and women who were 26-74 years of age and without history of any cancer at baseline were included in the present analyses. Coffee consumption and other study parameters were determined at baseline using standardized measurements. Participants were prospectively followed up for onset of gastric and/or pancreatic cancer, emigration, death or until June 30, 2006. During a mean follow-up period of 18 years, 299 cases of gastric cancer and 235 cases of pancreatic cancer were found. There was a nonsignificant inverse association between coffee consumption and risk of gastric cancer among men but not in the women. The multivariate-adjusted hazard ratio of stomach and pancreatic cancer incidence for ≥10 cups of coffee per day compared with nondrinkers were 0.75 (95% CI, 0.40-1.41) (P for trend = 0.19) and 0.82 (95% CI, 0.38-1.76) (P for trend = 0.95) for the combined population of men and women, respectively. We did not find a significant association between coffee consumption and the risk of gastric and/or pancreatic cancers. What's new? Finns consume the most coffee of any population worldwide. They also get more gastric and pancreatic cancer than other Scandinavians. Some previous studies have suggested a link between coffee drinking and cancer. In this study, some 60,000 people were monitored over two decades for onset of cancer. They found no significant association between coffee drinking and gastric or pancreatic cancer risk. Various other unhealthful behaviors, such as smoking, poor diet, and low physical activity, tend to correlate with high coffee consumption, potentially confounding the conclusions. Even after carefully controlling for these factors, however, coffee drinking had no effect on cancer risk. Copyright © 2012 UICC.