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Folate, Vitamin B₆, and Vitamin B₁₂ Intake and the Risk of Breast Cancer Among Mexican Women

¹ Center for Population Health Research, Instituto Nacional de Salud Publica, Cuernavaca, Mexico and ² Departments of Nutrition and Epidemiology, Harvard School of Public Health; The Channing Laboratory; Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts

Requests for reprints: Isabelle Romieu, Instituto Nacional de Salud Publica, Av. Universidad 655, Col. Santa Maria Ahuacatitlan, Cuernavaca, Morelos 62508, Mexico. Phone: 52-777-101-2935; Fax: 52-777-311-1148. E-mail: iromieu{at}correo.insp.mx

Background: High intake of folate, vitamin B₆, and vitamin B₁₂ have been hypothesized to lower the risk for breast cancer. We conducted a population-based case-control study to evaluate the risk for breast cancer among Mexican women with relatively low vitamin intakes.

Methods: We included 475 women (median age, 53 years; range, 23-87 years) diagnosed with incident breast cancer through six hospitals in Mexico City and interviewed them to obtain data on breast cancer risk factors and their usual diet using a food frequency questionnaire. We selected 1,391 (median age, 49 years; range, 18-82 years) controls from the Mexico City population using a national sampling frame.

Results: Compared with women in the lowest quartile, the odds ratio for breast cancer for women in the highest quartile of folate intake was 0.64 [95% confidence intervals (CI), 0.45-0.90; P, test for trend = 0.009] and 0.32 (95% CI, 0.22-0.49; P, test for trend < 0.0001) for vitamin B₁₂ intake. Among postmenopausal women, intakes of folate and vitamin B₁₂ were associated with a lower risk of breast cancer and those associations were stronger than among premenopausal women. The inverse association of folate and breast cancer was stronger among women who consumed a high level of vitamin B₁₂ as compared with women consuming diets low in vitamin B₁₂. No association was observed for vitamin B₆ intake.

Conclusions: In this population, high intakes of folate and vitamin B₁₂ were independently associated with decreased breast cancer risk, particularly among postmenopausal women. (Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2006;15(3):443–8)

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