Mediterranean diet and cancer: epidemiological evidence and mechanism of selected aspects

BMC Surgery

Research Article

Antonio Mistretta¹  Stefano Marventano¹  Filippo Drago²  Fabio Galvano³  Giuseppe Grosso³  Vanessa La Vela⁴  Antonio Biondi⁵  Santi Gangi⁵  Francesco Basile⁵  Silvio Buscemi⁶ 

[1] Department "G. F. Ingrassia" Section of Hygiene and Public Health, University of Catania, Catania, Italy;Department of Clinical and Molecular Biomedicine, Section of Pharmacology and Biochemistry, University of Catania, Catania, Italy;Department of Drug Sciences, Section of Biochemistry, University of Catania, Catania, Italy;Department of Eating Disorders Unit, Niguarda Hospital, University of Milan, Milan, Italy;Department of General Surgery, Section of General Surgery and Oncology, University Medical School of Catania, Italy;Department of Internal Medicine, University of Palermo, Palermo, Italy;

关键词: Breast Cancer Risk;    Resveratrol;    Endometrial Cancer;    Lycopene;    Mediterranean Diet;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1471-2482-13-S2-S14

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundPopulations living in the area of the Mediterranean Sea suffered by decreased incidence of cancer compared with those living in the regions of northern Europe and US countries, attributed to healthier dietary habits. Nowadays, we are assisting to a moving away from the traditional Mediterranean dietary pattern, but whether this changing is influencing risk of cancers is still unclear. The aim of the study was to review recent evidence on potential relationship between the adherence to the Mediterranean diet and cancer.DiscussionThe most recent pooled analyses of epidemiological studies supported strongly the hypothesis that the Mediterranean diet may play a role in preventing several types of cancers, especially those of digestive tract, whereas contrasting results were reported for hormone-dependent cancers. Specific aspects of the Mediterranean diet such as high fruit and vegetables and low red processed meat intake may explain such protective effects. Moreover, evidence regarding olive oil and whole grains increase the beneficial effects of such dietary pattern against cancer.ConclusionsLiterature evidence actually demonstrates that the increased adherence to the Mediterranean dietary pattern is beneficial to health across populations and may translate a protective effect with certain cancers.

【 授权许可】

Unknown   
© Grosso et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2013. This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.