Han Na Lee1, Jung Eun Lee2,3, Minji Kang1, Jae Eun Shim4,5, Hee-Young Paik1,2
1Center for Gendered Innovations in Science and Technology Research (GISTeR), Korea Federation of Women¡¯s Science & Technology Associations, Seoul, Korea 2Department of Food and Nutrition, Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea 3Research Institute of Human Ecology, Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea 4Department of Food and Nutrition, Daejeon University, Daejeon, Korea 5Daejeon Dong-gu Center for Children¡¯s Food Service Management, Daejeon, Korea
Background: Men and women choose different food items,
and consume different amounts of food, due to biological,
cultural, and social differences. However, when dietary
assessment instruments are developed, gender differences
in food selection and/or the portion sizes are often not
considered. Methods: Prospective cohort studies with men
and women that examined the association between red or
processed meat intake and colorectal cancer and published
up to July 2017, were identified using PubMed. Studies were
categorized as gender-specific (GS) group if the Food
Frequency Questionnaire was developed using gender-
specific data, and as not gender-specific (NGS) group if not
gender-specific data were used. Results: For cohort studies
that reported combined intake estimates of men and
women, a 100 g/day increment in red and processed meat
intake was positively associated with a risk of colorectal or
colon cancer in GS group (relative risk [RR], 1.23; 95%
confidence interval [CI], 1.14-1.32) but not in NGS group
(RR, 1.13; 95% CI, 0.90-1.35). For processed meat, the RR
for 50 g/day increase was 1.28 (95% CI, 1.15-1.40) in GS
group and 1.15 (95% CI, 1.03-1.27) in NGS group.
Conclusions: Gender differences need to be considered
during development of dietary assessment tools because
this may improve the quality of the findings of nutritional
epidemiological studies. Korean J Health Promot
2018;18(3):127-137
Keywords: Gender, Red meat,
Processed meat, Colorectal neoplasms, Surveys and
questionnaires
|