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  • Original Article
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Intake of antioxidants and risk of type 2 diabetes in a cohort of male smokers

Abstract

Background/Objectives:

Oxidative stress may induce insulin resistance in peripheral tissues and impair insulin secretion from pancreatic β-cells. Antioxidants are suggested to decrease the risk of diabetes through reduction of oxidative stress. However, only a few studies exist on dietary antioxidants and the risk of type 2 diabetes. We investigated the association of dietary antioxidants with incident type 2 diabetes in the α-Tocopherol, β-Carotene Cancer Prevention Study cohort.

Subject/Methods:

The study cohort included 29 133 male smokers aged 50–69 years. During a median follow-up of 10.2 years 660 incident cases of diabetes were observed among the 25 505 men with a completed baseline food frequency questionnaire.

Results:

Dietary α-tocopherol, β-tocopherol and β-tocotrienol were positively associated with the risk of diabetes when adjusted for age and supplementation (relative risk (RR) 1.17 (95% confidence interval (CI) 0.91–1.51) P for trend 0.02; RR 1.31 (95% CI 1.02–1.68) P for trend 0.01; RR 1.28 (95% CI 1.00–1.63) P for trend 0.01, respectively), but the association disappeared after multivariate adjustment (RR 0.92 (95% CI 0.71–1.19) P for trend 0.97; RR 1.06 (95% CI 0.82–1.36) P for trend 0.48; RR 1.04 (95% CI 0.80–1.35) P for trend 0.46, respectively). Other tocopherols and tocotrienols as well as vitamin C, carotenoids, flavonols and flavones had no association with risk of diabetes.

Conclusions:

Dietary antioxidants were not associated with a decreased risk of incident diabetes in middle-aged male smokers.

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Acknowledgements

The ATBC Study was supported by US Public Health Service contracts N01-CN-45165, N01-RC-45035 and N01-RC-37004 from the National Cancer Institute, NIH and the Department of Health and Human Services.

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Correspondence to M K Kataja-Tuomola.

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The authors declare no conflict of interest.

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Contributors: MKKT contributed to the study design, data collection and interpretation and manuscript writing. JPK contributed to data analysis and manuscript review. SM contributed to the study design, data interpretation and manuscript review. DA contributed to the manuscript review. JV contributed to project planning and coordinating, study design, data interpretation and manuscript review.

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Kataja-Tuomola, M., Kontto, J., Männistö, S. et al. Intake of antioxidants and risk of type 2 diabetes in a cohort of male smokers. Eur J Clin Nutr 65, 590–597 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/ejcn.2010.283

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