SUBJECTS/METHODS: Nested within the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC-IBD), incident UC and CD cases and matched controls where included. At recruitment, participants completed validated food frequency and lifestyle questionnaires. Alcohol consumption was classified as either: non-use, former, light (⩽0.5 and 1 drink per week), below the recommended limits (BRL) (⩽1 and 2 drinks per day), moderate (⩽2.5 and 5 drinks per day), or heavy use (>2.5 and >5 drinks per day) for women and men, respectively; and was expressed as consumption at enrolment and during lifetime. Conditional logistic regression was applied adjusting for smoking and education, taking light users as the reference.

RESULTS: Out of 262 451 participants in six countries, 198 UC incident cases/792 controls and 84 CD cases/336 controls were included. At enrolment, 8%/27%/32%/23%/11% UC cases and 7%/29%/40%/19%/5% CD cases were: non-users, light, BRL, moderate and heavy users, respectively. The corresponding figures for lifetime non-use, former, light, BRL, moderate and heavy use were: 3%/5%/23%/44%/19%/6% and 5%/2%/25%/44%/23%/1% for UC and CD cases, respectively. There were no associations between any categories of alcohol consumption and risk of UC or CD in the unadjusted and adjusted odds ratios.

AIM: We investigated the association between air pollution exposure and IBD.

METHODS: The European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition cohort was used to identify cases with Crohn's disease (CD) (n = 38) and ulcerative colitis (UC) (n = 104) and controls (n = 568) from Denmark, France, the Netherlands, and the UK, matched for center, gender, age, and date of recruitment. Air pollution data were obtained from the European Study of Cohorts for Air Pollution Effects. Residential exposure was assessed with land-use regression models for particulate matter with diameters of <10 μm (PM10), <2.5 μm (PM2.5), and between 2.5 and 10 μm (PMcoarse), soot (PM2.5 absorbance), nitrogen oxides, and two traffic indicators. Conditional logistic regression analyses were performed to calculate odds ratios (ORs) with 95 % confidence intervals (CIs).

RESULTS: Although air pollution was not significantly associated with CD or UC separately, the associations were mostly similar. Individuals with IBD were less likely to have higher exposure levels of PM2.5 and PM10, with ORs of 0.24 (95 % CI 0.07-0.81) per 5 μg/m(3) and 0.25 (95 % CI 0.08-0.78) per 10 μg/m(3), respectively. There was an inverse but nonsignificant association for PMcoarse. A higher nearby traffic load was positively associated with IBD [OR 1.60 (95 % CI 1.04-2.46) per 4,000,000 motor vehicles × m per day]. Other air pollutants were positively but not significantly associated with IBD.

METHODS: Within the prospective EPIC (European Prospective Investigation into Cancer) study, we set up a nested matched case-control study among 366,351 participants with inflammatory bowel disease data, including 256 incident cases of UC and 117 of CD, and 4 matched controls per case. Dietary intake was recorded at baseline from validated food frequency questionnaires. Incidence rate ratios of developing UC and CD were calculated for quintiles of the Mediterranean diet score and a posteriori dietary patterns produced by factor analysis.

RESULTS: No dietary pattern was associated with either UC or CD risks. However, when excluding cases occurring within the first 2 years after dietary assessment, there was a positive association between a "high sugar and soft drinks" pattern and UC risk (incidence rate ratios for the fifth versus first quintile, 1.68 [1.00-2.82]; Ptrend = 0.02). When considering the foods most associated with the pattern, high consumers of sugar and soft drinks were at higher UC risk only if they had low vegetables intakes.