Background and aims: Data on the link between egg consumption and brain tumors are limited. The objective of this study was to investigate the association between egg consumption and odds of glioma in Iranian adults.
Methods: In this hospital-based case-control study, 128 newly-diagnosed cases of glioma and 256 age- and sex-matched controls were enrolled from hospitals. Patients with pathologically confirmed glioma (without any other cancers) were considered eligible. We collected data on dietary intakes, including egg consumption, using a 126-item validated FFQ. Egg consumption was computed from all foods containing this food as their ingredients. Participants were categorized into tertiles of egg consumption. Conditional logistic regression was used to examine the association between egg consumption and glioma.
Results: After adjustment for age, sex and energy intake, individuals in the middle tertile of egg consumption were 58% (OR 0.42; 95% CI 0.24, 0.73) less likely to have glioma compared with those in the lowest tertile. Further adjustment for other potential confounders strengthened the association; such that participants with the greatest consumption of egg intake were 62% (0.38; 0.18, 0.76) less likely to have glioma compared with those with the lowest consumption. Additional controlling for dietary intakes did not change the association significantly (0.39; 0.18, 0.85).
Conclusion: We found an inverse association between egg consumption at the amount of almost 2 eggs/week and odds of glioma. Further studies are required to examine this association.