European Food Safety Authority's dietary recommendations and colorectal cancer risk

To promote good health, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) recently published dietary reference values for the intake of selected nutrients. We evaluated the role of six EFSA dietary recommendations on the risk of a specific disease, known to be related to diet, using data from an Italian case-control study on 1953 colorectal cancer (CRC) cases and 4154 controls. We developed an index summing up 1 point for adherence to each EFSA recommendation. Odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals of CRC were derived from unconditional multiple logistic regression models. When all the EFSA index components were included in the same model, we found a significant increased risk for adherence to the recommendation on total carbohydrates and reduced risks of borderline significance for linoleic and alpha-linolenic fatty acids. Compared with minimal adherence, the ORs of CRC for subsequent index scores were 1.01, 1.02, 1.07, 0.93 and 0.94. Overall adherence to the EFSA recommendations does not appreciably modify CRC risk in our population, except for a week positive association for the guidelines on linoleic and alpha-linolenic fatty acids, and an inverse one for that on total carbohydrates. Efforts should be devoted to elucidate the role of the EFSA guidelines on the risk of other diseases, and to define country-specific dietary recommendations.