Short Oral Presentation Nutrition Society of Australia 50th Annual Scientific Meeting 2026

Dietary vitamin K intakes and risk of lung cancer: findings from two large prospective cohort studies (143382)

Chengfeng Li 1 , Pratik Pokharel 1 2 , Marc Sim 1 , Kevin Murray 3 , Catherine Bondonno 1 4 , Benjamin Parmenter 1 , Liezhou Zhong 1 5 , Montana Dupuy 1 , Howraman Meteran 6 7 , Alysha Thompson 8 , Allan Linneberg 9 10 , Tilman Kühn 8 11 12 13 , Aedín Cassidy 8 , Nicola Bondonno 1 2 8
  1. Nutrition & Health Innovation Research Institute, Edith Cowan University, Perth, WA, Australia
  2. The Danish Cancer Institute, Copenhagen, Denmark
  3. School of Population and Global Health, University of Western Australia, Perth, WA, Australia
  4. Medical School, Royal Perth Hospital, The University of Western Australia, Perth, WA, Australia
  5. Institute of Agriculture, The University of Western Australia, Perth, WA, Australia
  6. Department of Respiratory Medicine, Copenhagen University Hospital-Hvidovre, Copenhagen, Denmark
  7. Department of Public Health, Environment, Occupation and Health, Danish Ramazzini Centre, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark
  8. Co-Centre for Sustainable Food Systems and The Institute for Global Food Security, Queen's University Belfast, Belfast, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom
  9. Center for Clinical Research and Prevention, Copenhagen University Hospital, Bispebjerg and Frederiksberg, Copenhagen, Denmark
  10. Department of Clinical Medicine, Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark
  11. Center for Public Health, Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
  12. Department of Nutritional Sciences, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
  13. Department of Nutritional, Food and Consumer Sciences, Fulda University of Applied Sciences, Germany

Vitamin K may affect inflammation, oxidative stress and proliferation, but prospective evidence for lung cancer remains limited. We examined dietary vitamin K intake and incident lung cancer among 55,031 cancer-free participants from the Danish Diet, Cancer and Health (DDCH) cohort and 185,123 from the UK Biobank (UKB). Vitamin K₁ and K₂ intakes were estimated from food frequency questionnaires in the DDCH cohort and 24-hour dietary recalls in UKB using cohort-specific food composition databases. Incident lung cancer was ascertained through national cancer registries. Multivariable-adjusted Cox proportional hazards models were fitted within each cohort with estimates pooled using fixed-effects meta-analysis. Additionally, analyses were stratified by smoking status and lung cancer polygenic risk scores. During follow-up, 1,938 lung cancer cases occurred in the DDCH and 1,145 in UKB, mostly among ever smokers. Higher vitamin K₁ intake was associated with lower lung cancer incidence in pooled analyses (Hazard ratio, HRQ5vsQ1: 0.87, 95% CI: 0.77–0.97), particularly among ever smokers (HR 0.82, 95% CI 0.73–0.92), but not never smokers (HR 1.05, 95% CI 0.74–1.49). Vitamin K₂ intake was not associated with lung cancer. Absolute risk modelling suggested the largest 20-year risk reductions among current smokers. Among UKB ever smokers, inverse associations for moderate vitamin K₁ intake were most evident in individuals with high genetic risk, with estimates in other strata closer to null. These findings suggest a potential role of vitamin K₁-rich foods, such as green leafy vegetables, in smoking-related lung cancer prevention, while reinforcing smoking cessation as the primary prevention strategy.