Early Life Nutrition Factors and Risk of Acute Leukemia in Children: Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.
Level 4 - case-series / case-control
Systematic review and meta-analysis of observational case-control studies
PubMed 37686807 · doi:10.3390/nu15173775
What was done
Authors searched PubMed and Web of Science through June 2023 without language or date restrictions for epidemiological studies evaluating early life nutrition factors (breastfeeding, early diet, neonatal vitamin K) and childhood acute leukemia risk. Data from 38 studies (37 case-control studies and 1 pooled analysis) were synthesized via generic inverse-variance meta-analysis.
What was found
Breastfeeding (yes vs. no) showed a protective association with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (odds ratio = 0.85; 95% CI, 0.76-0.94). Evidence for other early life foods and supplements was inconclusive, with no quantitative estimates reported for those factors in the abstract.
Why it matters
The findings synthesize decades of observational data to support a modest protective association between infant breastfeeding and acute lymphoblastic leukemia.
Limits
The underlying evidence consists almost exclusively of retrospective case-control studies, which carry inherent risks of recall bias and exposure misclassification. The abstract reports no numerical estimates for non-breastfeeding exposures, lacks duration or exclusivity subgroups, and does not provide results for non-ALL leukemia types.
Cited by
- supports Certain types of cancers, such as childhood leukemias, peak in incidence during childhood rather than in later stages of life.