EPIC is the largest prospective cohort study on diet, lifestyle and chronic disease worldwide. It includes 522,000 middle-aged subjects. Diet and lifestyle data were collected at baseline. Blood samples were collected and stored at -196C. EPIC was initiated to elucidate the complex relationships between nutrition and related metabolic characteristics and the causation/prevention of cancer, coronary heart disease (CHD) and stroke. The main goal of this CA is to reinforce and expand collaboration between 23 European institutes to ensure that this major European resource will produce a large mass of data relevant for the identification of nutritional and environmental causes of cancer and other chronic diseases and that this knowledge will contribute to the development of effective public health strategies for the prevention of cancer, CHD and stroke. 7 technical WPs cover major areas of epidemiological/public health interest: diet, alcohol, tobacco, obesity and physical activity (PA), socioeconomic factors, biomarkers of exposure and statistical methods. Major deliverables: elucidation of the relationships between a) consumption of major foods consumed by different European populations, and the causation/prevention of different cancers, CHD and stroke and b) anthropometric characteristics, PA and these health outcomes; analyses of the complex association of alcoholic beverages and risk of cancer, CHD, obesity and all cause mortality; updated results on the health damaging effects of tobacco/benefits of tobacco quitting; identification of long term disease risk prediction of biomarkers of diet, aiming to identify new biomarkers for the identity of subjects at increased cancer risk due to nutritional imbalances; methodological guidelines on quality/standardized methods for measuring diet and PA; estimation of the public health impact of potential interventions to improve diet, promote PA, prevent obesity, moderate alcohol intake.
Keywords:
Nutrition; Diet; Alcohol; Tobacco; Obesity; Physical activity; Socioeconomic factors; Biomarkers of exposure
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