Dietary fat intake and endometrial cancer risk

Since body fatness is a convincing risk factor for endometrial cancer, dietary fat intake was speculated to be associated with endometrial cancer risk. However, epidemiological studies are inconclusive. We aimed to conduct a meta-analysis to assess the associations between dietary fat intake and endometrial cancer risk. We searched the PubMed, Embase, and Web of science databases updated to September 2015. In total, 7 cohort and 14 case-control studies were included. Pooled analysis of case-control studies suggested that endometrial cancer risk was significantly increased by 5% per 10% kilocalories from total fat intake (P=0.02) and by 17% per 10 g/1000 kcal of saturated fat intake (P < 0.001). Summary of 3 cohort studies showed significant inverse association between monounsaturated fatty acids and endometrial cancer risk (odds ratio = 0.84, 95% confidence interval = 0.73-0.98) with a total of 524583 participants and 3503 incident cases. No significant associations were found for polyunsaturated fatty acids and linoleic acid. In conclusion, positive associations with endometrial cancer risk were observed for total fat and saturated fat intake in the case-control studies. Results from the cohort studies suggested higher monounsaturated fatty acids intake was significantly associated with lower endometrial cancer risk.