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Diet and Cancer (Poster Session)

(P12-006-25) Low-Fat Diets, Plasma Metabolome, and Risk of Incident Cancers

Sunday, June 1, 2025
12:45 PM - 1:45 PM ET
Location: Poster Board E-5

    Presenting Author(s)

  • HD

    Hongkun Di, Doctor of Medicine

    Huazhong University of Science and Technology
    Wuhan, Hubei, China (People's Republic)

    • Co-Author(s)

  • QW

    Qi Wu, PhD candidate

    Doctor
    Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, School of Public Health, Hubei Key Laboratory of Food Nutrition and Safety, Department of Nutrition and Food Hygiene
    wuhan, Hubei, China (People's Republic)

  • YJ

    Yinan Jiang

    Huazhong University of Science and Technology, China (People's Republic)

  • YG

    Yanjun Guo

    Huazhong University of Science and Technology, China (People's Republic)

  • LL

    Liegang Liu, PhD

    Huazhong University of Science and Technology
    Wuhan, Hubei, China (People's Republic)

  • ZS

    Zhilei Shan, PhD

    Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology
    Wuhan

Disclosure(s):
Qi Wu, PhD candidate: No relevant financial relationship(s) with ineligible companies to disclose.


Objectives: Research on the association between low-fat-diets and cancer risk is limited, particularly concerning total cancer risk and its underlying mechanisms. The study aimed to examine the associations of low-fat diets with risk of total and 20 specific cancers, and explore the potential molecular mechanisms.

Methods: A total of 193,457 adults, free of cancer at baseline and with at least one 24-hour dietary recall from UK Biobank, were included in the main analysis. Of these, 105,004 adults with complete metabolomic data were included in the metabolomic analysis. Overall, unhealthy, and healthy low-fat-diet scores were derived by the percentage of energy from total and subtypes of carbohydrate, fat, and protein. Linear and elastic net regularized regression were applied to calculate metabolomic signatures reflecting low-fat-diet scores. Cox regression was used to estimate hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for cancer incidence. Cause mediation analyses were used to test the mediating effects of metabolomic signatures and single metabolites.

Results: During a median follow-up of 12.53 years, 27,354 participants developed new-onset cancers. Unhealthy low-fat diet was not associated with total cancer risk. Comparing the 10th with the 1st decile, the multi-adjusted HRs of overall cancer were 0.92 (95% CI, 0.87-0.98) for overall low-fat-diet score and 0.90 (95% CI, 0.85-0.96) for healthy low-fat-diet score (All P for trend < .05). Healthy low-fat diet score was associated with the risk of lung and kidney cancers, with the HRs of 0.75 (95% CI, 0.57-0.99) and 0.63 (95% CI, 0.40-0.98) comparing the 10th to the 1st decile, respectively. The related metabolomic signature explained 21.59% of the association between healthy low-fat diet and total cancer, with polyunsaturated fatty acids (PFAs) and glutamine being the main potential mediators.

Conclusions: Overall and healthy low-fat-diet scores were associated with lower total cancer risk, and healthy low-fat-diet score was associated with lower lung and kidney cancer risk. A range of metabolites were identified, including PFAs and glutamine, which might lie on the pathway between healthy low-fat diet and total cancer.

Funding Sources: This study is supported by the National Natural Science Fund for Excellent Young Scientists of the National Natural Science Foundation of China.