Italian Study Finds High Pizza Consumption Associated With Lower Risk Of.......
Italian Study Finds High Pizza Consumption Associated With Lower Risk Of Digestive Tract Cancers
July 22, 2003
(International Journal of Cancer) -- An association has been found between regular pizza consumption and fewer occurrences of cancers of the digestive tract among an Italian population, according to a new study to be published in an upcoming print issue of the International Journal of Cancer, the official journal of the International Union Against Cancer (UICC).
Researchers found that patients with cancers of the oral cavity, pharynx, esophagus, larynx, colon and rectum included a higher percentage of non-pizza-eaters compared with non-cancer patients. As an example, while about 37 percent of the healthy control sample were non-pizza-eaters, almost 58 percent of patients with esophageal cancer were non-pizza eaters.
Led by Silvano Gallus of the Istituto di Ricerche Farmacologiche "Mario Negri" in Milan, Italy, researchers considered the relationship of pizza consumption to cancer by comparing 3,315 patients with digestive tract or laryngeal cancer with 4,999 people admitted to hospitals for other conditions. Each person completed a standard questionnaire and a food frequency questionnaire, which included a specific question about pizza.
The researchers derived relative risks for three categories of pizza consumption -- non-eaters (less than one portion per month), occasional eaters (1-3 portions per month), and regular eaters (one or more portions per week). The odds ratios included terms for age, sex, study center, education, alcohol and tobacco consumption, energy intake, body mass index, and for colon and rectal cancer, a measure of physical activity.
Compared with non-pizza-eaters, corresponding multivariate relative risks for regular pizza eaters were .66 for oral and pharyngeal cancers, .41 for esophageal, .82 for laryngeal, .74 for colon, and .93 for rectal cancers. The risk trends were significant for oral and pharyngeal, esophageal, and colon cancers. The findings suggest that consuming pizza reduces the risk for cancers of the digestive tract.
By contrast, previous studies have linked refined carbohydrates with colorectal cancer. Since pizza does contain such carbohydrates, the authors suggest that its favorable influence may be related to tomatoes or olive oil, which have been shown to be inversely associated to the risk of various cancers.
"Even if the association is real," the authors conclude, "inference on specific components of pizza, macro or micronutrients remains difficult, since pizza may simply represent an aspecific indicator of Italian diet."
And though the researchers note, "it has been estimated that a traditional healthy Mediterranean diet could prevent 10 to 25 percent of several common neoplasms in developed western countries," they caution, it would not be warranted to assume the apparent cancer-fighting effect of pizza exists in other diets and populations.
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