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Calcium as a chemopreventive agent against colorectal neoplasm: does obesity play a role?

Departments of Nutrition, Harvard T.H, Chan School of Public Health, Building 2, 3rd Floor, 655 Huntington Avenue, Boston, MA, 02115, USA. nak212@mail.harvard.edu. Departments of Biostatistics, Harvard T.H, Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, 02115, USA. Departments of Nutrition, Harvard T.H, Chan School of Public Health, Building 2, 3rd Floor, 655 Huntington Avenue, Boston, MA, 02115, USA. Channing Division of Network Medicine, Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, 02115, USA.

Cancer causes & control : CCC. 2017;(8):853-856
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Abstract

BACKGROUND Concerning the chemopreventive potential of calcium against colorectal neoplasms, strong evidence from initial randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of colorectal adenoma has not been confirmed from the most recent large RCT. To explain the conflicting results, a new hypothesis was proposed that the benefit of calcium may be confined to lean individuals. METHODS To test this hypothesis, we examined heterogeneity of the associations of calcium intake with adenoma and CRC, using data from the most recent meta-analyses of observational studies and conducting subgroup analysis by average body mass index (BMI) of study population. RESULTS An inverse association of calcium intake with adenoma and CRC did not vary by population average BMI. By anatomical subsites of CRC, while there was no significant evidence of heterogeneity by population average BMI (P heterogeneity > 0.05), the benefit of calcium was confined to studies with population average BMI of ≥25 kg/m2 for both colon cancer and rectal cancer, contradicting the hypothesis. CONCLUSIONS In our study-level meta-analysis, we found no evidence to support that the chemopreventive potential of calcium, if real, may be stronger in leaner individuals.

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Publication Type : Meta-Analysis

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