IJE Advance Access originally published online on January 6, 2008
International Journal of Epidemiology 2008 37(2):368-378; doi:10.1093/ije/dym242
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The evaluation of the diet/disease relation in the EPIC study: considerations for the calibration and the disease models
1 International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC-WHO), Lyon, France.
2 Strangeways Research Laboratory, University of Cambridge, UK.
3 National Institute of Public Health and the Environment (RIVM), Bilthoven, Netherlands.
4 Cancer Epidemiology Unit, University of Oxford, Headington, Oxford, UK.
5 German Institute of Human Nutrition, Postdam-Rehbrücke, Germany.
6 INSERM (Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale), ERI-20, Institut Gustave Roussy, Villejuif, France.
7 Catalan Institute of Oncology, Barcelona, Spain.
8 Department of Clinical Epidemiology, Aalborg Hospital, Aarhus University Hospital, Aalborg, Denmark.
9 Institute of Community Medicine, University of Tromsø, Norway.
10 Department of Hygiene and Epidemiology, University of Athens Medical School, Athens, Greece.
11 Cancer Registry, Azienda Ospedaliera ‘Civile-M.P. Arezzo’, Ragusa, Italy.
12 Department of Community Medicine, Lund University, Malmö University Hospital, Malmö, Sweden.
13 Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, Imperial College London; United Kingdom.
14 German Cancer Research Centre, Clinical Epidemiology, C020, AG Nutritional Epidemiology, Heidelberg, Germany.
*Corresponding author. IARC-WHO, 150 cours Albert-Thomas, 69372 Lyon cedex 08, France. E-mail: Ferrari{at}iarc.fr
 |
Abstract |
|---|
Background International multicentre studies on diet and cancer are relatively new in epidemiological research. They offer a series of challenging methodological issues for the evaluation of the association between dietary exposure and disease outcomes, which can both be quite heterogeneous across different geographical regions. This requires considerable work to standardize dietary measurements at the food and the nutrient levels.
Methods Within the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC), a calibration study was set up to express individual dietary intakes according to the same reference scale. A linear regression calibration model was used to correct the association between diet and disease for measurement errors in dietary exposures. In the present work, we describe an approach for analysing the EPIC data, using as an example the evaluation of the association between fish intake and colorectal cancer incidence.
Results Sex- and country-specific attenuation factors ranged from 0.083 to 0.784, with values overall higher for men compared with women. Hazard ratio estimates of colorectal cancer for a 10 g/day increase in fish intake were 0.97 [95% confidence interval (CI): 0.95–0.99] and 0.93 (0.88–0.98), before and after calibration, respectively.
Conclusions In a multicentre study, the diet/disease association can be evaluated by exploiting the whole variability of intake over the entire study. Calibration may reduce between-centre heterogeneity in the diet–disease relationship caused by differential impact of measurement errors across cohorts.
Keywords Calibration, multicentre study, measurement error, diet, EPIC
Accepted 30 October 2007
CiteULike 
Connotea 
Del.icio.us What's this?
This article has been cited by other articles:
|
|
 |
|
  V. Pala, V. Krogh, F. Berrino, S. Sieri, S. Grioni, A. Tjonneland, A. Olsen, M. U. Jakobsen, K. Overvad, F. Clavel-Chapelon, et al. Meat, eggs, dairy products, and risk of breast cancer in the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC) cohort Am. J. Clinical Nutrition, September 1, 2009; 90(3): 602 - 612. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
|
|
F. J. van Duijnhoven, H B. Bueno-De-Mesquita, P. Ferrari, M. Jenab, H. C Boshuizen, M. M Ros, C. Casagrande, A. Tjonneland, A. Olsen, K. Overvad, et al. Fruit, vegetables, and colorectal cancer risk: the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition Am. J. Clinical Nutrition, May 1, 2009; 89(5): 1441 - 1452. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
 |
|
 D. Spiegelman Commentary: Calculations of EPIC proportions Int. J. Epidemiol., April 1, 2008; 37(2): 379 - 381. [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|