Dietary acrylamide intake and risk of endometrial cancer in prospective cohort studies

Acrylamide has been associated with carcinogenicity in experimental animals, but potential health risks of dietary acrylamide intake and endometrial cancer in human are inconclusive. Thus, a meta-analysis of prospective cohort studies was conducted to provide a quantitative assessment of the association between dietary acrylamide intake and endometrial cancer risk.

PubMed database was used to identify prospective cohort studies on dietary acrylamide intake and endometrial cancer risk published up to June 2014. Since smoking is an important source of acrylamide and is inversely associated with endometrial cancer risk, the association was examined in women who never smoked as well. Multivariable relative risks (RR) adjusting for potential confounders were combined using random effects models.

Four large prospective cohort studies were identified, which included 453,355 female participants and 2,019 endometrial cancer cases. There was no association between dietary acrylamide intake and endometrial cancer risk overall [pooled RR for high vs. low intake = 1.10; 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.91-1.34]. High acrylamide intake, however, was significantly associated with increased risk of endometrial cancer among women who never smoked (pooled RR for high vs. low intake = 1.39; 95% CI 1.09-1.77). In dose-response analyses, pooled RRs for an increase of 10 µg/day were 1.04 (95% CI 0.97-1.11) among all women and 1.11 (95% CI 1.04-1.19) among never-smoking women.

Endometrial cancer risk was not associated with dietary acrylamide intake overall. Among women who never smoked, however, there was a significantly increased endometrial cancer risk in women who consumed high dietary acrylamide.