No epidemiological studies have been conducted to assess the association of dietary vitamin K intake with the risk of pancreatic cancer. We used prospective data from the Prostate, Lung, Colorectal, and Ovarian Cancer Screening Trial between 1993 and 2009 to fill this gap. A total of 101695 subjects were identified. Dietary intakes of phylloquinone (vitamin K1), menaquinones (vitamin K2), and dihydrophylloquinone (dihydrovitamin K1) were assessed with a food frequency questionnaire. Cox regression was applied to calculate hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs). During a mean follow-up of 8.86 years (900744.57 person-years), 361 pancreatic cancer cases were documented. In the fully adjusted model, dietary intakes of phylloquinone (HRquartile 4 versus 1: 0.57; 95% CI: 0.39, 0.83; Ptrend=0.002) and dihydrophylloquinone (HRquartile 4 versus 1: 0.59; 95% CI: 0.41, 0.85; Ptrend=0.006), but not menaquinones (HRquartile 4 versus 1: 0.93; 95% CI: 0.65, 1.33; Ptrend=0.816), were found to be inversely associated with the risk of pancreatic cancer in a nonlinear dose-response manner (all Pnonlinearity<0.05), which were not modified by predefined stratification factors and remained in sensitivity analyses. In conclusion, dietary intakes of phylloquinone and dihydrophylloquinone, but not menaquinones, confer a reduced risk of pancreatic cancer. Future studies should confirm our findings.
© The Author(s) 2021. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

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