Pizza consumption and the risk of breast, ovarian and prostate cancer

Abstract

Pizza has been favourably related to the risk of prostate cancer in North America. Scanty information, however, is available on sex hormone-related cancer sites. We therefore studied the role of pizza consumption on the risk of breast, ovarian and prostate cancers using data from three hospital-based case–control studies conducted in Italy between 1991 and 2002. These included 2569 women with breast cancer, 1031 with ovarian cancer, 1294 men with prostate cancer, and a total of 4864 controls. Compared with non-pizza eaters, the multivariate odds ratios for eaters were 0.97 (95% confidence interval (CI) 0.86–1.10) for breast, 1.06 (95% CI 0.89–1.26) for ovarian and 1.04 (95% CI 0.88–1.23) for prostate cancer. Corresponding estimates for regular eaters (i.e. ≥1 portion per week) were 0.92 (95% CI 0.78–1.08), 1.00 (95% CI 0.80–1.25) and 1.12 (95% CI 0.88–1.43), respectively. Our results do not show a relevant role of pizza on the risk of sex hormone-related cancers. The difference with selected studies from North America suggests that dietary and lifestyle correlates of pizza eating vary between different populations and social groups.