Review of epidemiologic studies of dietary acrylamide intake and the risk of cancer
European Journal of Cancer Prevention, 05/31/2012  Review Article

Lipworth L et al. – Epidemiologic studies of dietary acrylamide intake have failed to demonstrate an increased risk of cancer.

• We have critically reviewed the epidemiologic studies of estimated dietary acrylamide exposure and cancer.
• As substantially greater acrylamide exposure occurs through tobacco smoke than dietary exposure, we present the results separately for never smokers or adjusted statistically for smoking status, where possible.

• After an extensive examination of the published literature, we found no consistent or credible evidence that dietary acrylamide increases the risk of any type of cancer in humans, either overall or among nonsmokers.
• In particular, the collective evidence suggests that a high level of dietary acrylamide intake is not a risk factor for breast, endometrial, or ovarian cancers, which have generated particular interest because of a conjectured hormonal mechanism of acrylamide.
• Moreover, the absence of a positive association between smoking and ovarian and endometrial cancers suggests that any association of these cancers with the much lower, more sporadic dietary acrylamide intake is unlikely.