Data from EPIC-Oxford are being analysed together with data from other European EPIC centres and the results will be compiled over the next few years. The first major analyses of EPIC-Europe data will examine the associations between diet and the most common cancers (lung, breast, prostate and bowel cancer), and with coronary heart disease. See the EPIC- Europe section for further details.
A great deal of our research in EPIC-Oxford has focused on the effects of diet on a range of factors, including obesity, circulating hormones and common causes of cancer and death.
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We have shown that nutrient intake differs markedly between meat-eaters, fish-eaters, lacto-ovo-vegetarians and vegans (Davey et al,2003). In particular, blood levels of long-chain fatty acids (i.e. DHA and EPA) are lower in vegetarians and vegans than in meat-eaters. Correspondingly, the prevalence of obesity is much lower in vegetarians than in meat-eaters (Key et al, 1996 and Spencer et al, 2003). However, life-long vegetarians have a similar weight to those who become vegetarian as adults (Rosell et al, 2005). Whilst all individuals tend to gain weight with increasing age, the lowest weight gain seen over a five-year period was seen among those who had changed to a diet containing less animal foods (Rosell et al, 2006).
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Non-meat eaters, especially vegans, also have a lower prevalence of hypertension and lower systolic and diastolic blood pressures than meat eaters, largely because of differences in body mass index (Appleby et al, 2002).
We have also compared rates of diseases between different dietary groups and have found that vegetarians have a slightly lower death rate from ischaemic heart disease compared with non-vegetarians, although the death rate for all major causes of death is similar. However, the overall death rate is much lower in EPIC-Oxford compared with national rates (Key et al, 2003).
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Because a large proportion of participants in EPIC-Oxford are non-meat- eaters, we have been able to examine the effect of soya milk and other soya- based foods intake on blood levels of phytoestrogens and circulating hormone levels. We have found that there is a strong correlation between reported consumption of soya and blood levels of phytoestrogens, confirming that the dietary questionnaire is a reliable method for assessing soya intake. In addition, the blood levels of phytoestrogens among women who were consuming a lot of soya are as high as that described in Japanese people consuming a traditional soya-rich Japanese diet (Verkasalo et al, 2001). We have found that a high intake of soya foods was associated with a favourable blood cholesterol concentration (Rosell et al, 2004), but soya intake was not found to be associated with blood sex hormone levels in women (Verkasalo et al, 2001) or men (Allen et al, 2001).
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Because hormone concentrations may be important in the development of several diseases, including prostate cancer in men and breast cancer in women (Key et al, 2002), we have examined whether diet influences circulating levels of sex hormones. If diet can be shown to alter hormone levels, then this might lead to ways to prevent the disease through diet. We have found no differences between meat-eaters, lacto-ovo-vegetarians or vegans in circulating blood levels of sex hormones in men (Allen et al, 2000 and Thomas et al, 1999). However, we have found that levels of a growth factor called insulin-like growth factor-I were higher in both the meat-eaters and the lacto-ovo-vegetarians than in the vegans in both men (Allen et al, 2000) and women (Allen et al, 2002).
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