Dietary fat intake and liver cancer risk: A prospective cohort study in Chinese women

OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to determine whether dietary fat intake increased liver cancer risk in Chinese women from a prospective population-based cohort. METHODS: A total of 72,704 Chinese women were followed up from the time of baseline recruitment (1996–2000) to the end of 2016. Dietary fat intake was calculated using a validated food frequency questionnaire. The Cox regression model was used to assess the hazard ratio (HR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) for dietary fat intake and liver cancer risk. RESULTS: We identified 252 incident liver cancer cases out of 1,267,845 person-years during the overall follow-up time. Null associations, neither in quartiles nor per standard deviation (SD) increment, were detected between liver cancer risk and dietary total fat, fat subtypes and subtype ratios, and food sources. The HR (95% CI) of the 1-SD increment was 1.03 (0.90–1.17) for total fat, 1.06 (0.93–1.20) for saturated fat, 1.06 (0.93–1.21) for monounsaturated fat, and 1.00 (0.89–1.13) for polyunsaturated fat. Similar null associations were observed in stratification analyses according to body mass index and menopausal status. CONCLUSIONS: In our prospective cohort study, no significant association was observed in Chinese women between dietary fat and liver cancer risk, and in stratification and sensitivity analyses.