Meat Consumption and the Risk of Barrett's Esophagus in a Large Dutch Cohort

Increasing meat intake and its possible role in the development of esophageal adenocarcinoma raises the question whether meat consumption is associated with the premalignant lesion, Barrett's esophagus. Associations between the risk of Barrett's esophagus and meat consumption, intake of N-nitrosodimethylamine, nitrite, and heme iron were examined in the Netherlands Cohort Study among 120,852 subjects aged 55 to 69 years in 1986. Exposure was measured on the basis of a 150-item food frequency questionnaire. After 16.3 years of follow-up, 447 Barrett's esophagus cases with specialized intestinal metaplasia and 3,919 subcohort members were analyzed in a case-cohort design. There was no association of any of the examined exposures with Barrett's risk in men or women. Results were similar in age-adjusted and fully adjusted models and in models excluding the first two years of follow-up. Our results do not support a role of meat consumption and N-nitrosation related factors in the development of Barrett's esophagus. The possible causal association between red meat intake and esophageal adenocarcinoma is unlikely to be mediated by mechanisms through the development of Barrett's esophagus.