Polyphenols are bioactive compounds with several anticarcinogenic activities; however, human data regarding associations with thyroid cancer (TC) is still negligible. Our aim was to evaluate the association between intakes of total, classes and subclasses of polyphenols and risk of differentiated TC and its main subtypes, papillary and follicular, in a European population. The European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition cohort included 476,108 men and women from 10 European countries. During a mean follow-up of 14 years, there were 748 incident differentiated TC cases, including 601 papillary and 109 follicular tumors. Polyphenol intake was estimated at baseline using validated center/country-specific dietary questionnaires and the Phenol-Explorer database. In multivariable-adjusted Cox regression models, no association between total polyphenol and the risks of overall differentiated TC (HRQ4 vs. Q1 = 0.99, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.77-1.29), papillary (HRQ4 vs. Q1 = 1.06, 95% CI 0.80-1.41) or follicular TC (HRQ4 vs. Q1 = 1.10, 95% CI 0.55-2.22) were found. No associations were observed either for flavonoids, phenolic acids or the rest of classes and subclasses of polyphenols. After stratification by body mass index (BMI), an inverse association between the intake of polyphenols (p-trend = 0.019) and phenolic acids (p-trend = 0.007) and differentiated TC risk in subjects with BMI ≥ 25 was observed. In conclusion, our study showed no associations between dietary polyphenol intake and differentiated TC risk; although further studies are warranted to investigate the potential protective associations in overweight and obese individuals.
Several studies have reported associations of hypertension with cancer, but not all results were conclusive. We examined the association of systolic (SBP) and diastolic (DBP) blood pressure with the development of incident cancer at all anatomical sites in the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC). Hazard ratios (HRs) (95% confidence intervals) were estimated using multivariable Cox proportional hazards models, stratified by EPIC-participating center and age at recruitment, and adjusted for sex, education, smoking, body mass index, physical activity, diabetes and dietary (in women also reproductive) factors. The study included 307,318 men and women, with an average follow-up of 13.7 (standard deviation 4.4) years and 39,298 incident cancers. We confirmed the expected positive association with renal cell carcinoma: HR = 1.12 (1.08-1.17) per 10 mm Hg higher SBP and HR = 1.23 (1.14-1.32) for DBP. We additionally found positive associations for esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (SCC): HR = 1.16 (1.07-1.26) (SBP), HR = 1.31 (1.13-1.51) (DBP), weaker for head and neck cancers: HR = 1.08 (1.04-1.12) (SBP), HR = 1.09 (1.01-1.17) (DBP) and, similarly, for skin SCC, colon cancer, postmenopausal breast cancer and uterine adenocarcinoma (AC), but not for esophageal AC, lung SCC, lung AC or uterine endometroid cancer. We observed weak inverse associations of SBP with cervical SCC: HR = 0.91 (0.82-1.00) and lymphomas: HR = 0.97 (0.93-1.00). There were no consistent associations with cancers in other locations. Our results are largely compatible with published studies and support weak associations of blood pressure with cancers in specific locations and morphologies.