Higher Intake of Dietary Fiber, but not Fruits or Vegetables Is Associated with Lower Risk of Pancreatic Cancer: A Large Prospective Study

Pancreatic cancer (PC) is classed as the 7th leading cause of cancer-related death in the world. Previous evidence indicates that hyperglycemia, insulin resistance, diabetes, and obesity are implicated in pancreatic carcinogenesis. Thus, evaluation of the dietary intakes in the etiology of PC can be useful to identify the risk factors of the disease.
Methods and Materials: We examined the association between total intake of fruits, vegetables, and dietary fiber and the risk of PC in 50,045 participants aged 40-75 years within the Golestan Cohort Study. Dietary data were collected using a validated semi-quantitative food-frequency questionnaire, which was administered at baseline. Cox proportional hazards models were used to estimate multivariate hazard ratio with 95% confidence interval.
During 383,630 person-years of follow-up and after excluding the participants with incomplete baseline information, a total of 48,676 adults were evaluated. Until October 30, 2014, 54 cases of PC were confirmed based on the exact cause of death using ICD10 criteria. After considering all potential confounding factors, there was only a statistically significant inverse association between the risk of PC for the highest tertile of daily fiber intake compared with the lowest tertile (HR=0.41; 95% CI= 0.15-1.05; P for trend= 0.05). However, the relationship between fruits and vegetables and PC risk was not statistically significant.
In summary, based on the findings of this study, increased dietary fiber may reduce the risk of PC. This result highlights the importance of a diet rich in fiber in order to prevent PC progression. Finally, given the limited number of studies in this field and inconclusive results, there is still a need for new prospective studies with long follow-up.