Dietary and Endogenous Advanced Glycation End Product and Breast Carcinogenesis: A Challenging Lack of Association in a Rigorous Case-Control Study.

INTRODUCTION

Advanced Glycation End (AGE) Product is produced by atypical metabolism when food is cooked at high temperatures in a short time, such as roasted foods, or when chemicals are added as in processed foods. Research on the association between AGE and breast cancer (BC) has been inconclusive.

METHODS

This multicenter case-control study investigated the relationship between serum AGE (sAGE), tissue AGE (tAGE), and dietary AGE (dAGE) and BC, considering physical activity (PA). The study included 44 hormone receptor-positive premenopausal BC patients and 42 controls. Data on diet and PA were collected using validated Persian questionnaires. sAGE and tAGE were measured using blood and tissue samples.

RESULTS

The dAGE was 16,104.98 ± 6542.04 and 15,084.53 ± 5827.69 kilo-units/day, while PA was significantly lower in cases than controls (773.64 ± 829.92 vs. 1920.95 ± 2999.91 MET-minutes/week, p = 0.02). The mean sAGE was 626.11 ± 695.00 ng/mL in cases and 713.93 ± 829.67 in controls. tAGE was positive in 34.1% and 28.6% of cases and controls.

CONCLUSION

We found no association between dAGE and BC or dAGE and sAGE or tAGE. PA was less in the BC group but unrelated to sAGE and dAGE. As we accounted for all relevant variables, our negative findings provide strong evidence against an association between AGEs in diet, PA, and BC.