SynthesisScientific reports2016
Choline and betaine consumption lowers cancer risk: a meta-analysis of epidemiologic studies.
Synthesis in Scientific reports, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 30 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
30 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 60 citations in OpenAlex.
- Risk factors for breast cancer: an umbrella review of observational cohort studies and causal relationship analysis.Frontiers in oncology · 2025Pooled it
- Effect of Betaine on Reducing Body Fat-A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials.Nutrients · 2019Pooled it
- Article
- The Double-Edged Nature of Methyl Donors in Cancer Development from Prevention to Progression.International journal of molecular sciences · 2025Review
- Metabolomics Plasma Biomarkers Associated with the HRD Phenotype in Ovarian Cancer.Metabolites · 2025Article
- Choline-An Essential Nutrient with Health Benefits and a Signaling Molecule.International journal of molecular sciences · 2025Review
- Prostate cancer risk biomarkers from large cohort and prospective metabolomics studies: A systematic review.Translational oncology · 2025Review
- Article
- Review
- Dietary choline intake and health outcomes in U.S. adults: exploring the impact on cardiovascular disease, cancer prevalence, and all-cause mortality.Journal of health, population, and nutrition · 2024Article
- The association of serum betaine concentrations with the risk of new-onset cancers: results from two independent nested case-control studies.Nutrition & metabolism · 2023Article
- Metabolomic epidemiology offers insights into disease aetiology.Nature metabolism · 2023Review
- Dietary Choline and Betaine Intake and Risk of Colorectal Cancer in an Iranian Population.Cancers · 2023Article
- Metabolomic and elemental profiling of blood serum in bladder cancer.Journal of pharmaceutical analysis · 2022Article
- Integrative functional analysis uncovers metabolic differences between Candida species.Communications biology · 2022Article
- Dietary methyl donor nutrients, DNA mismatch repair polymorphisms, and risk of colorectal cancer based on microsatellite instability status.European journal of nutrition · 2022Article
- Association of serum choline levels and all-cause mortality risk in adults with hypertension: a nested case-control study.Nutrition & metabolism · 2021Article
- Betaine host-guest complexation with a calixarene receptor: enhancedRSC advances · 2021Article
- Dietary Methyl-Group Donor Intake and Breast Cancer Risk in the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC).Nutrients · 2021Article
- Role of betaine in inhibiting the induction of RNA Pol III gene transcription and cell growth caused by alcohol.Chemico-biological interactions · 2020Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
8 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
A number of human and animal in vitro or in vivo studies have investigated the relationship between dietary choline and betaine and cancer risk, suggesting that choline and betaine consumption may be protective for cancer. There are also a few epidemiologic studies exploring this relationship, however, with inconsistent conclusions. The PubMed and Embase were searched, from their inception to March 2016, to identify relevant studies and we brought 11 articles into this meta-analysis eventually. The pooled relative risks (RRs) of cancer for the highest versus the lowest range were 0.82 (95% CI, 0.70 to 0.97) for choline consumption only, 0.86 (95%CI, 0.76 to 0.97) for betaine consumption only and 0.60 (95%CI, 0.40 to 0.90) for choline plus betaine consumption, respectively. Significant protective effect of dietary choline and betaine for cancer was observed when stratified by study design, location, cancer type, publication year, sex and quality score of study. An increment of 100 mg/day of choline plus betaine intake helped reduce cancer incidence by 11% (0.89, 95% CI, 0.87 to 0.92) through a dose-response analysis. To conclude, choline and betaine consumption lowers cancer incidence in this meta-analysis, but further studies are warranted to verify the results.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.