Flavonoids and the Risk of Gastric Cancer: An Exploratory Case-Control Study in the MCC-Spain Study

Several epidemiological studies have investigated the association between the dietary flavonoid intake and gastric cancer (GC) risk; however, the results remain inconclusive. Investigating the relationship between the different classes of flavonoids and the histological types and origin of GC can be of interest to the research community. We used data from a population-based multi-case control study (MCC-Spain) obtained from 12 different regions of Spain. 2700 controls and 329 GC cases were included in this study. Odds ratios (ORs) were calculated using the mixed effects logistic regression considering quartiles of flavonoid intakes and log2. Flavonoid intake was associated with a lower GC risk (ORlog2 = 0.76; 95% CI = 0.65-0.89; ORq4vsq1 = 0.60; 95%CI = 0.40-0.89; ptrend = 0.007). Inverse and statistically significant associations were observed with anthocyanidins, chalcones, dihydroflavonols and flavan-3-ols. The isoflavanoid intake was positively associated with higher cancer risk, but without reaching a statistical significance. In general, no differences were observed in the GC risk according to the location and histological type. The flavonoid intake seems to be a protective factor against GC within the MCC-study. This effect may vary depending on the flavonoid class but not by the histological type and location of the tumor. Broader studies with larger sample size and greater geographical variability are necessary.The study was partially funded by the “Accion Transversal del Cancer”, approved on the Spanish Ministry Council on 11 October 2007, by the Instituto de Salud Carlos III-FEDER (PI08/1770, PI08/0533, PI08/1359, PS09/00773-Cantabria, PS09/01286-León, PS09/01903-Valencia, PS09/02078-Huelva, PS09/01662-Granada, PI11/01403, PI11/01889-FEDER, PI11/00226, PI11/01810, PI11/02213, PI12/00488, PI12/00265, PI12/01270, PI12/00715, PI12/00150, PI14/01219, PI14/0613, PI15/00069, PI15/00914, PI15/01032, PI17CIII/00034), by the Fundación Marqués de Valdecilla (API 10/09), by the ICGC International Cancer Genome Consortium CLL (The ICGC CLL-Genome Project is funded by Spanish Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (MINECO) through the Instituto de Salud Carlos III (ISCIII) and Red Temática de Investigación del Cáncer (RTICC) del ISCIII (RD12/0036/0036)), by the Junta de Castilla y León (LE22A10-2), by the Consejería de Salud of the Junta de Andalucía (PI-0571-2009, PI-0306-2011, salud201200057018tra), by the Conselleria de Sanitat of the Generalitat Valenciana (AP_061/10), by the Recercaixa (2010ACUP 00310), by the Regional Government of the Basque Country, by the Consejería de Sanidad de la Región de Murcia, by the European Commission grants FOOD-CT-2006-036224-HIWATE, by the Spanish Association Against Cancer (AECC) Scientific Foundation – grant GCTRA18022MORE, by the Catalan Government- Agency for Management of University and Research Grants (AGAUR) grants 2017SGR723 and 2014SGR850, by the Fundación Caja de Ahorros de Asturias and by the University of Oviedo. ISGlobal is a member of the CERCA Programme, Generalitat de Catalunya.S