The role of Mediterranean diet in cancer incidence and mortality in the older adults

Giulia Giordano; Luca Mastrantoni; Roberta Terranova; Giuseppe Ferdinando Colloca; Giuseppe Zuccalà; Francesco Landi

doi:10.1038/s41514-024-00186-w

The role of Mediterranean diet in cancer incidence and mortality in the older adults

NPJ Aging. 2024 Dec 5;10(1):61. doi: 10.1038/s41514-024-00186-w.

Authors

Giulia Giordano^#¹, Luca Mastrantoni^#^{2

3}, Roberta Terranova^{3

4}, Giuseppe Ferdinando Colloca⁵, Giuseppe Zuccalà⁶, Francesco Landi⁶

Affiliations

¹ Department of Geriatrics, Orthopaedics and Rheumathological Sciences, Fondazione Policlinico Universitario Agostino Gemelli, IRCCS Rome, Rome, Italy. [email protected].
² Medical Oncology, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Rome, Italy.
³ Fondazione Policlinico Universitario Agostino Gemelli, IRCCS, Rome, Italy.
⁴ Geriatrics, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Rome, Italy.
⁵ Department of Imaging Diagnostic, Oncologic radiotherapy and Haematology, Fondazione Policlinico Universitario Agostino Gemelli IRCCS, Rome, Italy.
⁶ Department of Geriatrics, Orthopaedics and Rheumathological Sciences, Fondazione Policlinico Universitario Agostino Gemelli, IRCCS Rome, Rome, Italy.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

The magnitude of benefit of Mediterranean diet in cancer prevention and mortality in older adults is still unclear, therefore we conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis. Outcomes considered were cancer incidence and cancer mortality. In studies evaluating cancer incidence as a time-to-event endpoint and adherence as quantiles, HR was 0.885 (95% CI 0.773-1.013, I² = 44%). Including ORs, exploratory pooled effect size was 0.876 (0.794-0.966, I² = 34%), consistently with results of studies evaluating ORs for adherence as one-point increase (OR 0.744, 0.570-0.972, I² = 90%). No clear benefit was observed on cancer mortality, with pooled HR of 0.935 (0.800-1.093, I² = 0%). Significant differences were observed for ORs according to cancer type but not between medium and high adherence for both outcomes. Certainty of evidence was low. Our findings suggest that MD could play a protective role in cancer incidence in advanced age, but no clear effect on cancer mortality was observed.