Dietary fruit, vegetable, fat, and red and processed meat intakes and Barrett’s esophagus risk: a systematic review and meta-analysis

The relationships between dietary fruit, vegetable, fat, and red and processed meat intakes and Barrett's esophagus (BE) risk remain inconclusive. We conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis to summarize the available evidence on these issues. PubMed, EMBASE and the Cochrane Library were searched for studies published from inception through October 2015. A total of eight studies were included in this analysis. Fruit intake was not associated with BE risk (OR = 0.65, 95% CI = 0.37-1.13), but vegetable intake was strongly associated with BE risk (OR = 0.45, 95% CI = 0.29-0.71). Saturated fat, red meat and processed meat intakes were not associated with BE risk with OR = 1.25 (95% CI = 0.82-1.91), OR = 0.85 (95% CI = 0.61-1.17) and OR = 1.03 (95% CI = 0.73-1.46), respectively. Dietary vegetable not fruits intake may be associated with decreased BE risk. Fat and red and processed meat intakes may not contribute to an increased BE risk. Well-designed, large prospective studies with better established dose-response relationships are needed to further validate these issues.