Results

The wide scope of the study - the relation between diet, lifestyle and the development of colorectal polyps and cancer in persons with Lynch syndrome - enables us to answer many specific research questions. A selection of our results are summarized here. All findings can be found in the scientific publication below.

Overweight

Men with overweight have a 8 times higher risk of developing colorectal tumors than men who are not overweight. We did not see this association in women.

Smoking

Current smokers have a 6 times higher risk of developing colorectal tumors than those who never smoked. Former smokers had a 2 times higher risk compared to those who never smoked.

Diet

  • Certain dietary patterns, such as a pattern with a high snack content, may influence the risk of colorectal tumors, while other dietary patterns, such as a pattern with a high inflammatory potential, do not. Thus, these dietary patterns should be investigated further.
  • Alcohol: we did not observe an association between alcohol consumption and colorectal tumor risk.
  • A higher intake of B-vitamins, which are involved in the synthesis and structure of DNA, was not related to the risk of colorectal tumors.

Dietary supplements

We did not observe an association between the intake of dietary supplements and the risk of colorectal tumors.

Height

In an international study, in which we combined the Geolynch study with a large study from the United States, Canada and Australia (named the Colon Cancer Family Registry), we did not observe an association between height and colorectal cancer risk for men and women. We also did not observe an association between height and endometrial cancer for women.

Scientific publications