Diet-wide analyses for risk of colorectal cancer: prospective study of 12,251 incident cases among 542,778 women in the UK

Keren Papier (), Kathryn E. Bradbury, Angela Balkwill, Isobel Barnes, Karl Smith-Byrne, Marc J. Gunter, Sonja I. Berndt, Loic Marchand, Anna H. Wu, Ulrike Peters, Valerie Beral, Timothy J. Key and Gillian K. Reeves
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Keren Papier: University of Oxford
Kathryn E. Bradbury: The University of Auckland
Angela Balkwill: University of Oxford
Isobel Barnes: University of Oxford
Karl Smith-Byrne: University of Oxford
Marc J. Gunter: Imperial College London
Sonja I. Berndt: National Institutes of Health
Loic Marchand: University of Hawaii Cancer Center
Anna H. Wu: Department of Population and Public Health Sciences
Ulrike Peters: Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center
Valerie Beral: University of Oxford
Timothy J. Key: University of Oxford
Gillian K. Reeves: University of Oxford

Nature Communications, 2025, vol. 16, issue 1, 1-12

Abstract: Abstract Uncertainty remains regarding the role of diet in colorectal cancer development. We examined associations of 97 dietary factors with colorectal cancer risk in 542,778 Million Women Study participants (12,251 incident cases over 16.6 years), and conducted a targeted genetic analysis in the ColoRectal Transdisciplinary Study, Colon Cancer Family Registry, and Genetics and Epidemiology of Colorectal Cancer Consortium (GECCO). Alcohol (relative risk per 20 g/day=1.15, 95% confidence interval 1.09-1.20) and calcium (per 300 mg/day=0.83, 0.77–0.89) intakes had the strongest associations, followed by six dairy-related factors associated with calcium. We showed a positive association with red and processed meat intake and weaker inverse associations with breakfast cereal, fruit, wholegrains, carbohydrates, fibre, total sugars, folate, and vitamin C. Genetically predicted milk consumption was inversely associated with risk of colorectal, colon, and rectal cancers. We conclude that dairy products help protect against colorectal cancer, and that this is driven largely or wholly by calcium.

Date: 2025
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DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-55219-5

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