Consumption of sweet foods and breast cancer risk in Italy.

BACKGROUND The relation between the intake of sugar and sweets and the risk of breast cancer has been considered in ecological, prospective and case-control studies, but the results are unclear. We analyzed such a relation in a case-control study conducted between 1991 and 1994 in Italy. PATIENTS AND METHODS Cases were 2569 women with histologically confirmed incident breast cancer and controls were 2588 women admitted to hospital for acute, non-neoplastic, non-hormone-related conditions. Information on diet was based on an interviewer-administered questionnaire tested for reproducibility and validity. The odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) were computed by multiple logistic regression equations. RESULTS Compared with women with the lowest tertile of intake, women in the highest tertile of intake of desserts (including biscuits, brioches, cakes, puffs and ice-cream) and sugars (including sugar, honey, jam, marmalade and chocolate) had multivariate ORs of 1.19 (95% CI 1.02-1.39) and 1.19 (95% CI 1.02-1.38), respectively. The results were similar in strata of age, body mass index, total energy intake and other covariates. CONCLUSIONS We found a direct association between breast cancer risk and consumption of sweet foods with high glycemic index and load, which increase insulin and insulin growth factors.