Vitamin B2 Intake and the Risk of Colorectal Cancer: a Meta- Analysis of Observational Studies

Background: A systematic review and meta-analysis of observational studies evaluated the association ofintake of vitamin B2 with the incidence of colorectal cancer. Materials and
Methods: Relevant studies wereidentified in MEDLINE via PubMed (published up to April 2014). We extracted data from articles on vitaminB2 and used multivariable-adjusted odds ratio (OR) and a random-effects model for analysis.
Results: We found8 articles meeting the inclusion criteria (4 of cohort studies and 4 of case-control studies) and a total of 7,750colorectal cancer cases were included in this meta-analysis. The multivariable-adjusted OR for pooled studiesfor the association of the highest versus lowest vitamin B2 intake and the risk of colorectal cancer was 0.83 (95%confidence interval [95%CI]:0.75,0.91). We performed a sensitivity analysis for vitamin B2. If we omitted thestudy by Vecchia et al., the pooled OR was 0.86 (95%CI, 0.77,0.96).
Conclusions: This is the first meta-analysisto study links between vitamin B2 and colorectal cancer. We found vitamin B2 intake was inversely associatedwith risk of colorectal cancer. However, further research and large sample studies need to be conducted to bettervalidate the result.