Dietary patterns among U.S. food insecure cancer survivors and the risk of mortality: NHANES 1999–2018

Food insecurity—the lack of unabated access to nutritious foods—is a consequence many cancer survivors face. Food insecurity is associated with adverse health outcomes and lower diet quality in the general public. The goal of this analysis was to extract major and prevailing dietary patterns among food insecure cancer survivors from observed 24-h recall data and evaluate their relationship to survival after a cancer diagnosis.

We implemented two dietary patterns analysis approaches: penalized logistic regression and principal components analysis. Using nationally representative data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) study, we extracted three dietary patterns. Additionally, we evaluated the HEI-2015 for comparison. Cox proportional hazards models assessed the relationship between the diet quality indices and survival after a cancer diagnosis.

There were 981 deaths from all causes and 343 cancer-related deaths. After multivariable adjustment, we found higher risks of all-cause mortality associated with higher adherence to Pattern #1 (HR 1.25; 95% CI 1.09–1.43) and Pattern #2 (HR 1.15; 95% CI 1.01–1.31) among cancer survivors.

Among all cancer survivors, higher adherence to major and prevailing dietary patterns from the U.S. food insecure cancer survivor population may lead to worse survival outcomes.