Plasma vitamin C concentrations and risk of incident respiratory diseases and mortality in the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer-Norfolk population-based cohort study.
European Journal of Clinical Nutrition 2018
Myint PK, Wilson AM, Clark AB, Luben RN, Wareham NJ, Khaw KT
DOI : 10.1038/s41430-019-0393-1
PubMed ID : 30705384
PMCID : 0
URL : https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30705384/
Abstract
Cancerous and non-cancerous respiratory diseases are common and contribute significantly to global disease burden. We aim to quantify the association between plasma vitamin C concentrations as an indicator of high fruit and vegetable consumption and the risk of incident respiratory diseases and associated mortality in a general population.
Nineteen thousand three hundred and fifty-seven men and women aged 40-79 years without prevalent respiratory diseases at the baseline (1993-1997) and participating in the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer (EPIC)-Norfolk study in the United Kingdom were followed through March 2015 for both incidence and mortality from respiratory diseases.
There were a total of 3914 incident events and 407 deaths due to any respiratory diseases (excluding lung cancers), 367 incident lung cancers and 280 lung cancer deaths during the follow-up (total person-years >300,000 years). Cox's proportional hazards models showed that persons in the top quartiles of baseline plasma vitamin C concentrations had a 43% lower risk of lung cancer (hazard ratio (HR) 0.57; 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.41-0.81) than did those in the bottom quartile, independently of potential confounders. The results are similar for any non-cancerous respiratory diseases (HR 0.85; 0.77-0.95), including chronic respiratory diseases (HR 0.81; 0.69-0.96) and pneumonia (HR 0.70; 0.59-0.83). The corresponding values for mortality were 0.54 (0.35-0.81), 0.81 (0.59-1.12), 0.85 (0.44-1.66) and 0.61 (0.37-1.01), respectively. Confining analyses to non-smokers showed 42% and 53% risk reduction of non-smoking-related lung cancer incidence and death.
Higher levels of vitamin C concentrations as a marker of high fruit and vegetable consumption reduces the risk of cancerous and non-cancerous respiratory illnesses including non-smoking-related cancer incidence and deaths.
Study : EPIC-Norfolk: The European Prospective Investigation into Cancer Norfolk Cohort