abstract
The debate on the potential
carcinogenic effect of dietary acrylamide is open. In consideration of
the recent findings from large prospective investigations, we conducted
an updated meta-analysis on acrylamide intake and the risk of cancer at
several sites.
Up to July 2014, we identified 32 publications. We
performed
meta-analyses to calculate the summary relative risk (RR) of
each cancer site for the highest vs. lowest level of intake and for an
increment of 10 µg/day of dietary acrylamide, through fixed-effects or
random-effects models, depending on the heterogeneity test.
Fourteen
cancer sites could be examined. No meaningful associations were found
for most cancers considered.
The summary RRs for high vs. low acrylamide
intake were 0.87 for oral and pharyngeal, 1.14 for esophageal, 1.03 for
stomach, 0.94 for colorectal, 0.93 for pancreatic, 1.10 for laryngeal,
0.88 for lung, 0.96 for breast, 1.06 for endometrial, 1.12 for ovarian,
1.00 for prostate, 0.93 for bladder, and 1.13 for lymphoid malignancies.
The RR was of borderline significance only for kidney cancer (RR=1.20;
95% confidence interval, CI, 1.00-1.45).
All the corresponding
continuous estimates ranged between 0.95 and 1.03, and none of them was
significant. Among never-smokers, borderline associations with dietary
acrylamide emerged for endometrial (RR=1.23; 95% CI, 1.00-1.51) and
ovarian (RR=1.39; 95% CI, 0.97-2.00) cancers. This systematic review and
meta-analysis of epidemiological studies indicates that dietary
acrylamide is not related to the risk of most common cancers. A modest
association for kidney cancer, and for endometrial and ovarian cancers
in never smokers only, cannot be excluded.