Association between dietary protein intake and prostate cancer risk: evidence from a meta-analysis

Many studies were conducted to explore the relationship between dietary protein intake and risk of prostate cancer, obtaining inconsistent results. Therefore, this study aims to comprehensively explore the predicted role of dietary protein intake for risk of prostate cancer.

Databases of Web of Knowledge, PubMed, Chinese National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), and Wan Fang Med Online were searched up to August 30, 2017. Eligible studies were included based on our definite inclusion criteria. Summarized relative risk (RR) and corresponding 95% confidence interval (CI) were pooled with a random effects model. Sensitive analysis and publication bias were performed.

At the end, a total of 12 articles comprising 13,483 prostate cancer cases and 286,245 participants were included. The summary RR and 95%CI of the highest protein intake compared to those with the lowest protein intake on prostate cancer risk were 0.993 (95%CI = 0.930-1.061), with no between-study heterogeneity found (I² = 0.0%, P = 0.656). Moreover, the association was not significant on prostate cancer risk with animal protein intake [RR = 1.001, 95%CI = 0.917-1.092] or vegetable protein intake [RR = 0.986, 95%CI = 0.904-1.076]. The results were not changed when we conducted subgroup analysis by study design, cancer type, or geographic locations. We did not detect any publication bias using Egger's test (P = 0.296) and funnel plot.

Our study concluded that protein intake may be not associated on prostate cancer.