Dietary acrylamide intake and risk of breast cancer in the UK women's cohort

BACKGROUND: No studies to date have demonstrated a clear association with breast cancer risk and dietary exposure to acrylamide. METHODS: A 217-item food frequency questionnaire was used to estimate dietary acrylamide intake in 33 731 women aged 35-69 years from the UK Women's Cohort Study followed up for a median of 11 years. RESULTS: In all, 1084 incident breast cancers occurred during follow-up. There was no evidence of an overall association between acrylamide intake and breast cancer (hazard ratio = 1.08 per 10 mu g day(-1), 95% CI: 0.98-1.18, P-trend = 0.1). There was a suggestion of a possible weak positive association between dietary acrylamide intake and premenopausal breast cancer after adjustment for potential confounders (hazard ratio - 1.2, 95% CI: 1.0-1.3, P-trend = 0.008). There was no suggestion of any association for postmenopausal breast cancer (hazard ratio = 1.0, 95% CI: 0.9-1.1, P-trend = 0.99). CONCLUSIONS: There is no evidence of an association between dietary acrylamide intake and breast cancer. A weak association may exist with premenopausal breast cancer, but requires further investigation. British Journal of Cancer (2010) 103, 1749-1754. doi:10.1038/sj.bjc.6605956 www.bjcancer.com Published online 19 October 2010 (C) 2010 Cancer Research UK