Meat intake and risk of non-Hodgkin lymphoma

We conducted a population-based, case-control study to test the hypothesis that consumption of meat and meat-related mutagens increases the risk of non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL), and whether the associations are modified by N-acetyltransferase (NAT) 1 and 2. Participants (336 cases and 460 controls) completed a 117-item food frequency questionnaire. The risk of NHL was associated with a higher intake of red meat (OR = 1.5; CI, 1.1-2.2), total fat (OR = 1.4; CI, 1.0-2.1), and oleic acid (OR = 1.5; CI, 1.0-2.2).NHL risk was also associatedwith a higher intake of very well-done pork (OR = 2.5; 95 % CI, 1.4-4.3) and the meat-related mutagenMeIQx (OR = 1.6; 95 %CI, 1.1-2.3). Analyses of the major NHL histologic subtypes showed a positive association between diffuse large B cell lymphoma (DLBCL) and higher intake of redmeat (OR = 2.1; 95 %CI, 1.1-3.9) and the association was largely due to meat-related mutagens as a positive association was observed for higher intakes of both MeIQx (OR = 2.4; 95 % CI, 1.2-4.6) and DiMeIQx (OR = 1.9; 95 % CI, 1.0-3.5). Although the OR for follicular lymphoma (FL)was also increasedwith a higher redmeat intake (OR = 1.9; 95 %CI, 1.1-3.3), the association appeared to be due to increased oleic acid (OR = 1.7; 95 % CI: 0.9-3.1). We found no evidence that polymorphisms in NAT1 or NAT2 modify the association between NHL and meat-related mutagens. Our results provide further evidence that red meat consumption is associated with an increase inNHLrisk, and newevidence that the specific components of meat, namely fat and meat-related mutagens, may be impacting NHL subtype risk differently.