Objective: Intake of red and processed meat confers risk of colorectal cancer (CRC). We wanted to test whether heme in meat promotes carcinogenesis.
Methods: Heme oxygenase-1 (HO-1, HMOX1) A-413T (rs2071746) was assessed in a nested case-cohort study of 383 CRC cases and 763 randomly selected participants from a prospective study of 57 053 individuals. Incidence rate ratios and 95% confidence intervals were calculated.
Results: No association was found between the HO-1 polymorphism and CRC (P value for trend for the fully adjusted estimates = 0.29). No interaction with meat intake was found (P value for interaction = 0.55).
Conclusion: The studied HO-1 polymorphism was not associated with risk of CRC suggesting that heme from meat is not important in CRC development.