Cautious view on the link between yoghurt consumption and risk of colorectal cancer

Correspondence to Professor Jiaoyan Ren, School of Food Science and Engineering, Guangzhou, China; jyren@scut.edu.cn We read with great interest the recent work by Zheng et al published in the Gut journal titled ‘Yogurt consumption and risk of conventional and serrated precursors of colorectal cancer’.1 This impressive result was widely reported and rapidly disseminated and attracted great public health attention. The intake of fruits was inversely related to the risk of colorectal cancer among men, but not among women.3 Different fruit types, such as strawberry, blueberry or banana, have different benefits in to lowering the risk of colorectal cancer.4 Therefore, Yoghurt topped with different fruits might exert different influence on the conclusion of such studies.5 So, we strongly recommended that the classification of Yoghurt in future studies should be documented. In summary, while we appreciate the efforts of the investigators in addressing this important issue based on the cohort study, we suggest a more systematic and comprehensive analysis of the association between dairy intake and the risk of colorectal cancer, rather than just yoghurt.