Fried foods and the risk of colon cancer

High-temperature cooking of foods produces a variety of mutagenic substances. Because of the association of such substances with carcinogenesis, the authors used a case-control study of colon cancer conducted in Utah between 1977 and 1979 with 246 cases and 484 controls to test the hypothesis that persons with colon cancer would report more frequent use of fried and broiled meats. Intake of food was measured by a food frequency questionnaire which focused on food use five years before the interview. For men, the odds ratios for the highest level of use were 1.2 (90% confidence interval (CI): 0.8-1.9) for fried meats and 0.7 (90% CI: 0.5-1.0) for broiled meats; for women, the odds ratios were 1.3 (90% CI: 0.8-2.1) for fried meats and 1.1 (90% CI: 0.7-1.7) for broiled meats. The reported use of fried and broiled vegetables was too infrequent to permit evaluation. The authors conclude that the ingestion of fried and broiled meats five years before diagnosis of colon cancer had little influence on the development of this cancer.