Genetic evidence for associations between food intake and prostatic diseases: a Mendelian randomization study

Regional differences in the incidence of prostate cancer (PCa) and prostatitis may be due to different food intake. But which foods affect PCa and prostatitis development or progression remains controversial. This study aims to explore the causal relationship between PCa and prostatitis and 30 different foods using two-sample Mendelian randomization (MR) and multivariable MR (MVMR) analysis.

Data on 30 different foods were screened from the UK Biobank. PCa data came from a large meta-analysis of 140,254 individuals; prostatitis was obtained from the FinnGen consortium. The inverse variance weighted method was the main analysis method. MR-Egger, Cochran's Q, radial MR, and MR-PRESSO tests were used for sensitivity analysis.

Our results demonstrated that never eating sugar [odds ratio (OR), 0.30; 95% confidence interval (CI), 0.11-0.80; p = 0.02] and never eating eggs (OR, 0.52; 95% CI, 0.28-0.97; p = 0.04) reduced the risk of PCa; raw vegetable intake (OR, 2.27; 95% CI, 1.01-5.09; p < 0.05) and dried fruit intake (OR, 1.38; 95% CI, 1.02-1.87; p = 0.04) increased PCa risk. And a negative correlation existed between processed meat intake and prostatitis (OR, 0.27; 95% CI, 0.08-0.94; p = 0.04). After adjusting for smoking and drinking, never eating sugar was negatively correlated with PCa, while the raw vegetable intake was positively correlated with the risk of PCa.

Our study found four different foods associated with PCa and one food intake associated with prostatitis. We recommend more high-quality studies to reassess the benefits of individual foods in PCa.