Innovations Teams
Nutrition, Cancer, and Multimorbidity Team (NCM)

Starting date: January 2021

Work Programme

The Nutrition, Cancer, and Multimorbidity Team (NCM) investigates how nutrition, obesity, and metabolic dysfunction interact with cardiometabolic diseases, including cardiovascular diseases and type 2 diabetes, in relation to cancer incidence.

The co-occurrence of chronic diseases in individuals, such as cardiometabolic diseases and cancer, defined as multimorbidity, is becoming increasingly common.

A primary question is whether multimorbidity is due to shared risk factors, or whether cardiometabolic diseases, and related metabolic dysfunction, increase the risk of a subsequent cancer.

Another area of research for NCM is the role of lifestyle factors and the occurrence of morbid conditions that affect survival in people living with cancer.

Research outcomes will contribute to public health recommendations encompassing people living with cardiometabolic diseases and cancer, and inform targeted interventions.

Team Composition

Team Leader: Dr Heinz Freisling, Nutrition and Metabolism Branch (NME), IARC
Email: [email protected]

Team members:
Dr Pietro Ferrari (Deputy Branch Head, NME)
Ms Emma Fontvieille (Doctoral Student, Epidemiology and Public Health, NME)
Mr Quan Gan (Doctoral Student, Epidemiology and Public Health, NME)
Dr Anna Jansana (Postdoctoral Scientist, NME)
Ms Laia Peruchet Noray (Doctoral Student, Bioinformatics, NME)
Dr Vivian Viallon (Scientist, Statistics, NME)
Ms Karina Zaluski (Project Assistant, NME)

Key networks: European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC), Information System for Research in Primary Care (SIDIAP), National Cancer Institute (NCI) Cohort Consortium

Key funding: Institut national du Cancer (INCa), World Cancer Research Fund (WCRF), Austrian Science Fund (FWF), German Research Foundation (DFG)

Key publications

1. Recalde M, Pistillo A, Davila-Batista V, Leitzmann M, Romieu I, Viallon V, et al. (2023). Longitudinal body mass index and cancer risk: a cohort study of 2.6 million Catalan adults. Nat Commun. 14(1):3816. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-39282-yPMID:37391446
2. Peruchet-Noray L, Dimou N, Sedlmeier AM, Fervers B, Romieu I, Viallon V, et al. (2023). Body shape phenotypes and breast cancer risk: a Mendelian randomization analysis. Cancers (Basel). 15(4):1296. https://doi.org/10.3390/cancers15041296PMID:36831637
3. Sedlmeier AM, Viallon V, Ferrari P, Peruchet-Noray L, Fontvieille E, Amadou A, et al. (2023). Body shape phenotypes of multiple anthropometric traits and cancer risk: a multi-national cohort study. Br J Cancer. 128(4):594–605. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41416-022-02071-3PMID:36460776
4. Córdova R, Mayén AL, Knaze V, Aglago EK, Schalkwijk C, Wagner KH, et al. (2022). Dietary intake of advanced glycation endproducts (AGEs) and cancer risk across more than 20 anatomical sites: a multinational cohort study. Cancer Commun (Lond). 42(10):1041–5. https://doi.org/10.1002/cac2.12343PMID:35924960
5. Seyed Khoei N, Wagner KH, Sedlmeier AM, Gunter MJ, Murphy N, Freisling H (2022). Bilirubin as an indicator of cardiometabolic health: a cross-sectional analysis in the UK Biobank. Cardiovasc Diabetol. 21(1):54. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12933-022-01484-x PMID:35436955
6. Kohls M, Freisling H, Charvat H, Soerjomataram I, Viallon V, Davila-Batista V, et al. (2022). Impact of cumulative body mass index and cardiometabolic diseases on survival among patients with colorectal and breast cancer: a multi-centre cohort study. BMC Cancer. 22(1):546. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12885-022-09589-y PMID:35568802
7. Charvat H, Freisling H, Noh H, Gaudet MM, Gunter MJ, Cross AJ, et al. (2022). Excess body fatness during early to mid-adulthood and survival from colorectal and breast cancer: a pooled analysis of five international cohort studies. Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev. 31(2):325–33. https://doi.org/10.1158/1055-9965.EPI-21-0688 PMID:34782393
8. Mayén AL, Aglago EK, Knaze V, Cordova R, Schalkwijk CG, Wagner KH, et al. (2021). Dietary intake of advanced glycation endproducts and risk of hepatobiliary cancers: a multinational cohort study. Int J Cancer. 149(4):854–64. https://doi.org/10.1002/ijc.33612 PMID:33899229
9. Ricci C, Freisling H, Leitzmann MF, Taljaard-Krugell C, Jacobs I, Kruger HS, et al. (2020). Diet and sedentary behaviour in relation to cancer survival. A report from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey linked to the U.S. mortality registry. Clin Nutr. 39(11):3489–96. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.clnu.2020.03.013 PMID:32229168
10. Freisling H, Viallon V, Lennon H, Bagnardi V, Ricci C, Butterworth AS, et al. (2020). Lifestyle factors and risk of multimorbidity of cancer and cardiometabolic diseases: a multinational cohort study. BMC Med. 18(1):5. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12916-019-1474-7 PMID:31918762