The EPIC-Norfolk Study
No association of alcohol use and the risk of ulcerative colitis or Crohn's disease: data from a European Prospective cohort study (EPIC).
European Journal of Clinical Nutrition 2016 ; 71: 512-518.
Bergmann MM, Hernandez V, Bernigau W, Boeing H, Chan SS, Luben R, Khaw KT, van Schaik F, Oldenburg B, Bueno-de-Mesquita B, Overvad K, Palli D, Masala G, Carbonnel F, Boutron-Ruault MC, Olsen A, Tjonneland A, Kaaks R, Katzke V, Riboli E, and Hart AR
DOI : 10.1038/ejcn.2016.271
PubMed ID : 28120853
PMCID :
URL : https://www.nature.com/articles/ejcn2016271
Abstract
The role of long-term alcohol consumption for the risk of developing ulcerative colitis (UC) and Crohn's disease (CD) is unclear. For the first time, to prospectively assess the role of pre-disease alcohol consumption on the risk of developing UC or CD.
Nested within the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC-IBD), incident UC and CD cases and matched controls where included. At recruitment, participants completed validated food frequency and lifestyle questionnaires. Alcohol consumption was classified as either: non-use, former, light (⩽0.5 and 1 drink per week), below the recommended limits (BRL) (⩽1 and 2 drinks per day), moderate (⩽2.5 and 5 drinks per day), or heavy use (>2.5 and >5 drinks per day) for women and men, respectively; and was expressed as consumption at enrolment and during lifetime. Conditional logistic regression was applied adjusting for smoking and education, taking light users as the reference.
Out of 262 451 participants in six countries, 198 UC incident cases/792 controls and 84 CD cases/336 controls were included. At enrolment, 8%/27%/32%/23%/11% UC cases and 7%/29%/40%/19%/5% CD cases were: non-users, light, BRL, moderate and heavy users, respectively. The corresponding figures for lifetime non-use, former, light, BRL, moderate and heavy use were: 3%/5%/23%/44%/19%/6% and 5%/2%/25%/44%/23%/1% for UC and CD cases, respectively. There were no associations between any categories of alcohol consumption and risk of UC or CD in the unadjusted and adjusted odds ratios.
There was no evidence of associations between alcohol use and the odds of developing either UC or CD.