ADOLESCENT MILK, DAIRY PRODUCT AND FRUIT CONSUMPTION AND TESTICULAR CANCER

There is an association between dairy product consumption and the inci dence of testicular cancer in different countries. To test the hypothe sis that milk and dairy products are risk factors, a case-control stud y was performed in East Anglia, UK. All the cases were men with testic ular cancer and for each of the 200 cases there were four controls, tw o cancer controls and two population controls. The response rate of th ose eligible subjects who received a questionnaire was: cases 73%, can cer controls 65% and population controls 57%. All responding subjects completed a dietary questionnaire including questions on current and a dolescent milk, dairy product and fruit and vegetable consumption. The answers were corroborated when possible by the subjects' mothers usin g a separate questionnaire. Cases consumed significantly more milk in adolescence than population controls, but this difference did not appl y to other dairy products or fruit. The consumption of milk by cancer controls was intermediate between cases and population controls. Cance r controls with non-epithelial cancers had a milk consumption similar to cases, whereas subjects with epithelial cancers had a consumption s imilar to population controls. In a multivariate analysis the odds rat io between cases and population controls for the association of undesc ended testis and testicular cancer was 7.19 (95% Cl 2.36-21.9) and for each extra quarter pint of milk consumed it was 1.39 (95% Cl 1.19-1.6 3).