A Healthy Dietary Pattern Reduces Lung Cancer Risk: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Diet and nutrients play an important role in cancer development and progress; a healthy dietary pattern has been found to be associated with several types of cancer. However, the association between a healthy eating pattern and lung cancer risk is still unclear.

Therefore, we conducted a systematic review with meta-analysis to evaluate whether a healthy eating pattern might reduce lung cancer risk.

We identified relevant studies from the PubMed and Embase databases up to October 2015, and the relative risks were extracted and combined by the fixed-effects model when no substantial heterogeneity was observed; otherwise, the random-effects model was employed. Subgroup and publication bias analyses were also performed.

Finally, eight observational studies were included in the meta-analysis. The pooled relative risk of lung cancer for the highest vs. lowest category of healthy dietary pattern was 0.81 (95% confidence interval, CI: 0.75-0.86), and no significant heterogeneity was detected. The relative risks (RRs) for non-smokers, former smokers and current smokers were 0.89 (95% CI: 0.63-1.27), 0.74 (95% CI: 0.62-0.89) and 0.86 (95% CI: 0.79-0.93), respectively. The results remained stable in subgroup analyses by other confounders and sensitivity analysis.

The results of our meta-analysis suggest that a healthy dietary pattern is associated with a lower lung cancer risk, and they provide more beneficial evidence for changing the diet pattern in the general population.