Original Contribution Plasma Lycopene, Other Carotenoids, and the Risk of Type 2 Diabetes in Women

and free from cardiovascular disease and cancer to examine the prospective association among plasma lycopene, other carotenoids, and the risk of developing type 2 diabetes. During 10 years of follow-up, 470 cases of incident type 2 diabetes were selected and individually matched on age (1 year) and follow-up time to 470 nondiabetic controls. Baseline plasma levels of lycopene, a-carotene, b-carotene, b-cryptoxanthin, and lutein/zeaxanthin were similar in cases and controls (all p> 0.05). A possible crude inverse association between plasma lycopene and risk of type 2 diabetes was attenuated upon multivariate adjustment. After control for plasma total cholesterol and known diabetes risk factors, the multivariate odds ratios of type 2 diabetes in the highest versus the lowest quartile of plasma carotenoids were 1.13 (95 % confidence interval (CI): 0.60, 2.13) for lycopene, 1.27 (95 % CI: 0.63, 2.57) for a-carotene, 1.10 (95 % CI: 0.57, 2.13) for b-carotene, 0.91 (95 % CI: 0.46, 1.81) for b-cryptoxanthin, and 1.35 (95 % CI: 0.68, 2.69) for lutein/zeaxanthin. There was no prospective association between baseline plasma ca-rotenoids and the risk of type 2 diabetes in middle-aged and older women. carotenoids; case-control studies; diabetes mellitus, type 2; female; oxidative stress; plasma; prospective studies Abbreviations: CI, confidence interval; WHS, Women’s Health Study. Accumulating evidence indicates that oxidative stress, a condition of excessive reactive oxygen species, may pla