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Pancreatic cancer
Latest evidence
The updated SLR and report were published in October 2012.
The research team at Imperial College London produced a report of the updated evidence on food, nutrition and physical activity relating to the prevention of pancreatic cancer in 2011.
The review added 79 papers and updated meta-analyses for fruits and vegetables, meat and fish, eggs, alcohol, coffee, tea, soft drinks, glycaemic index and load, dietary fats, cholesterol, carbohydrate, sucrose, fructose, folate, vitamin C, multivitamin/mineral supplements, physical activity, body fatness and adult attained height.
The Expert Panel considered the updated evidence and for the first time decided to group several individual anthropometric exposures together according to their biological significance, which allowed a single conclusion to be drawn. These groupings were as follows:
- ‘Body fatness’ which the Panel interpreted to be reflected by BMI, abdominal girth and adult weight gain.
- ‘Greater childhood growth’ to reflect factors relating to development and maturation in childhood and adolescence, marked by BMI at aged about 20 years and adult attained height.
The Panel agreed that the updated CUP findings confirmed or strengthened the evidence that 'body fatness' and 'greater childhood growth' are a cause of pancreatic cancer.
The Pancreatic Cancer 2012 Report updates the pancreatic cancer section of the Second Expert Report (section 7.6) and is based on the findings of the 2011 SLR and the CUP Expert Panel discussion in June 2012.
The updated SLR and report, as well as the protocol, can be downloaded from our resource downloads section.
Conclusions from the updated evidence for pancreatic cancer
The Panel's judgements for factors graded convincing and probable are shown below. Further details on other factors can be found in the Pancreatic Cancer 2012 Report. Information on how the Panel judged the evidence can be found in Appendix 1 of the report, and further details in chapter 3 of the Second Expert Report.
Three journal papers based on the latest evidence in the CUP database have been published.