Flavonoid intake and breast cancer risk: a case-control study in Greece J Peterson1,2,3, P Lagiou4, E Samoli4, A Lagiou4,5, K Katsouyanni4, C La Vecchia6,7, J Dwyer1,2,3 and D Trichopoulos4,8 1Schools of Nutrition and Medicine, Boston, MA 02111, USA 2Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University, Boston, MA 02111, USA 3Frances Stern Nutrition Center Tufts-New England Medical Center, Box 783 NEMCH 750 Washington St, Boston, MA 02111, USA 4Department of Hygiene and Epidemiology, School of Medicine, University of Athens, Greece, 75 M. Asias St, Goudi, GR-115 27 Athens, Greece 5Faculty of Health Professions, Athens Technological Institute (TEI), Greece 6Laboratory of Epidemiology, Mario Negri Institute Via Eritrea, 62- 20157, Milan, Italy 7Institute of Medical Statistics, University of Milan, via Venezian 1, 20133 Milan, Italy 8Department of Epidemiology, Harvard School of Public Health, 677 Huntington Avenue, Boston, MA 02115, USA Correspondence to: Dr D Trichopoulos, Department of Epidemiology, Harvard School of Public Health, 677 Huntington Avenue, Boston, MA 02115, USA. E-mail: dtrichop@hsph.harvard.edu Flavonoids have been investigated for possible inverse associations with various chronic degenerative diseases, but there are no epidemiologic data concerning a possible association between several of the main flavonoid categories and breast cancer risk. We have applied recently published data on the flavonoid content of several foods and beverages on dietary information collected in the context of a large case-control study of 820 women with breast cancer and 1548 control women, conducted in Greece. We found a strong, statistically significant inverse association of flavone intake with breast cancer. The odds ratio for an increment equal to one standard deviation of daily flavone intake (i.e. 0.5 mg day-1) was 0.87, with 95% confidence interval 0.77-0.97. The association persisted after controlling for fruit and vegetable consumption, or for other flavonoid intake. This inverse association is compatible with and may explain the reported inverse association of breast cancer with consumption of vegetables, particularly leafy vegetables. After controlling for dietary confounding, there was no association of breast cancer risk with flavanones, flavan-3-ols, flavonols, anthocyanidins or isoflavones. British Journal of Cancer (2003) 89, 1255-1259. Remember we are NOT Doctors and have NO medical training. This site is like an Encylopedia - there are many pages, many links on many topics. Support our work with any size DONATION - see left side of any page - for how to donate. You can help raise awareness of CAM.