Association of Processed Meats and Alcohol Consumption with Renal Cell Carcinoma: A Worldwide Population-Based Study

The link between diet and renal cell carcinoma (RCC) is still unclear. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the association of diet with RCC’s incidence and mortality rates worldwide. We conducted an ecological study including 170 countries, whose data on age-standardized (AS) incidence and mortality rates of RCC, dietary factors, and potentially confounding factors such as obesity, insufficient physical activity, tobacco smoking, hypertension, diabetes, and human development index (HDI) were collected and available on May 2020 from the Global Cancer Observatory, the Global Dietary Database, the Global Health Observatory data repository, the Diabetes Atlas 9th edition and the Human Development Report 2019. Univariable and multivariable linear regression analyses were performed to determine the association of dietary factors with incidence and mortality rates of RCC adjusted for the effects of population age and potentially confounding factors. Intake of processed meats and consumption of alcohol were both positively associated with AS incidence rates of RCC (β = 0.11, P < 0.001 and β = 0.1, P = 0.044, respectively). We suggest that high consumption of processed meats and/or alcohol is a risk factor for RCC. However, they were not associated with mortality. Further research is needed at an individual level. Supplemental data for this article is available online at https://doi.org/10.1080/01635581.2020.1856388.