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Consumption of fried foods and risk of coronary heart disease: Spanish cohort of the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition study

BMJ 2012; 344 doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmj.e363 (Published 24 January 2012)
Cite this as: BMJ 2012;344:e363
  1. Pilar Guallar-Castillón, associate professor12,
  2. Fernando Rodríguez-Artalejo, professor12,
  3. Esther Lopez-Garcia, assistant professor12,
  4. Luz M León-Muñoz, postdoctoral research fellow12,
  5. Pilar Amiano, epidemiologist32,
  6. Eva Ardanaz, epidemiologist, head of section42,
  7. Larraitz Arriola, epidemiologist 32,
  8. Aurelio Barricarte, epidemiologist, head of service42,
  9. Genevieve Buckland, nutritional epidemiologist6,
  10. María-Dolores Chirlaque, specialist in preventive medicine and public health72,
  11. Miren Dorronsoro, unit chief32,
  12. José-María Huerta, research associate72,
  13. Nerea Larrañaga, epidemiologist32,
  14. Pilar Marin, registered nurse42,
  15. Carmen Martínez, senior scientist92,
  16. Esther Molina, research associate92,
  17. Carmen Navarro, senior scientist, head of department728,
  18. J Ramón Quirós, epidemiologist10,
  19. Laudina Rodríguez, medical doctor10,
  20. María José Sanchez, professor and director of research92,
  21. Carlos A González, senior scientist, unit chief6,
  22. Conchi Moreno-Iribas, epidemiologist245
  1. 1Department of Preventive Medicine and Public Health, School of Medicine, Autonomous University of Madrid, 28029 Madrid, Spain
  2. 2CIBER de Epidemiología y Salud Pública, Spain
  3. 3Public Health Division of Gipuzkoa, Instituto Investigación IIS BioDonostia, Basque Government, Donostia, Spain
  4. 4Public Health Institute of Navarra, Pamplona, Spain
  5. 5Department of Pediatrics, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, and Preventive Medicine, Autonomous University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain
  6. 6Unit of Nutrition, Environment and Cancer, Cancer Epidemiology Research Programme, Catalan Institute of Oncology, Hospitalet de Llobregat, Barcelona, Spain
  7. 7Department of Epidemiology, Murcia Regional Health Council, Spain
  8. 8Department of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, University of Murcia, Spain
  9. 9Andalusian School of Public Health, Granada, Spain
  10. 10Public Health and Health Planning Directorate, Oviedo, Asturias, Spain
  1. Correspondence to: P Guallar-Castillón mpilar.guallar{at}uam.es
  • Accepted 14 November 2011

Abstract

Objective To assess the association between consumption of fried foods and risk of coronary heart disease.

Design Prospective cohort study.

Setting Spanish cohort of the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition.

Participants 40 757 adults aged 29-69 and free of coronary heart disease at baseline (1992-6), followed up until 2004.

Main outcome measures Coronary heart disease events and vital status identified by record linkage with hospital discharge registers, population based registers of myocardial infarction, and mortality registers.

Results During a median follow-up of 11 years, 606 coronary heart disease events and 1135 deaths from all causes occurred. Compared with being in the first (lowest) quarter of fried food consumption, the multivariate hazard ratio of coronary heart disease in the second quarter was 1.15 (95% confidence interval 0.91 to 1.45), in the third quarter was 1.07 (0.83 to 1.38), and in the fourth quarter was 1.08 (0.82 to 1.43; P for trend 0.74). The results did not vary between those who used olive oil for frying and those who used sunflower oil. Likewise, no association was observed between fried food consumption and all cause mortality: multivariate hazard ratio for the highest versus the lowest quarter of fried food consumption was 0.93 (95% confidence interval 0.77 to 1.14; P for trend 0.98).

Conclusion In Spain, a Mediterranean country where olive or sunflower oil is used for frying, the consumption of fried foods was not associated with coronary heart disease or with all cause mortality.

Footnotes

  • Contributors: CM-I is coordinator of the European Prospective Investigation of Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC)-HEART-Spain. CAG is coordinator of the EPIC-Spain. CM-I and CAG contributed equally to the study. PG-C and FR-A conceived the study and drafted the manuscript. They are the guarantors. PG-C, FR-A, EL-G and LML-M analysed the data. PA, EA, LA, AB, GB, M-DC, MD, J-MH, NL, PM, CM, EM, CN, JRQ, LR, and MJS provided the original data and information on the respective populations and helped design and analyse the study. AB, MD, CN, JRQ, MJS, and CAG were the principal investigators for EPIC. All authors interpreted the results and contributed to writing the manuscript and take responsibility for the integrity of the data and the accuracy of the data analysis.

  • Funding: This study was funded by research grants from FIS (PI04-0257, PI06-0366, PI04-2342, PI04-1822, PI04-1821, PI04-2188, and PI08-0166); RETIC (RD06/0020) of the Instituto de Salud Carlos III; and funds from the Spanish regional governments of Andalusia, Asturias, Basque Country, Murcia, and Navarra, and the Catalan Institute of Oncology. EL-G has a Ramón y Cajal contract from the Ministry of Education. Authors of this report, and not the funding agencies, are responsible for its content. The funder did not have any role in the study design; collection, analysis, and interpretation of the data; the writing of the report; and the decision to submit the article for publication.

  • Competing interests: All authors have completed the ICMJE uniform disclosure form at www.icmje.org/coi_disclosure.pdf (available on request from the corresponding author) and declare: no support from any organisation for the submitted work; no financial relationships with any organisations that might have an interest in the submitted work in the previous three years; and no other relationships or activities that could appear to have influenced the submitted work.

  • Ethical approval: This study was approved by the ethics committees of the International Agency for Research on Cancer (Lyon, France) and Bellvitge Hospital (Barcelona, Spain).

  • Data sharing: No additional data available.

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial License, which permits use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non commercial and is otherwise in compliance with the license. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/ and http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/legalcode.

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