e-Participate

We are grateful for the continued support of all our collaborators and study participants. In addition to the funding awarded to the Million Women Study in 2013 from the Medical Research Council, we are pleased to announce continued funding from Cancer Research UK. We now have more than 13 years of follow-up which will allow us to answer many questions about women’s health. 

Million Women Study papers published since October 2013

Published papers include studies of organic food consumption in relation to risk of cancer, the link between birth weight and cancer risk in adulthood, and ethnic differences in the risk of breast cancer. We have also looked at risk factors for coronary heart disease, diverticular disease and hospital admissions for different conditions. Summaries of all publications are available on the study website:

Hospital admissions and excess weight

We estimated rates of admission to hospital according to body mass index. We found that one in eight of all admissions of women to hospital in the UK are linked to overweight or obesity. Hospital admissions for diabetes, knee-replacement, gallbladder disease and venous thromboembolism were most strongly associated with body mass index.

Reeves GK et al; Hospital admissions in relation to body mass index in UK women: a prospective cohort study. BMC Med 2014; 12:45.

Organic food and cancer

Organically produced foods are less likely than conventionally produced foods to contain pesticide residues. We found that there was little or no decrease in the risk of developing cancer associated with eating organic food, except possibly for non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

Bradbury KE et al; Organic food consumption and the incidence of cancer in a large prospective study of women in the United Kingdom. Br J Cancer 2014; 110:2321-6.

Blood Samples and the disease susceptibility study

We have been asking more study participants to provide blood samples to help us expand our understanding of the relationship between genetic and biochemical factors and disease susceptibility. The total number of blood samples collected is now 48,559. The lab staff are always delighted to receive the gift of blood from a participant and look forward to reaching the 50,000 milestone next year.

Online diet questionnaire

To date, 96,000 online diet questionnaires have been completed.

We're still collecting data and hope to get even more participants involved now that our email list has been updated via the 4th general follow-up questionnaire.

4^th General follow-up questionnaires

The mailing of the 4th general follow-up questionnaire was completed in March 2014 and around 600,000 responses have been received.

All of our questionnaires and publications can be viewed on the study website: www.millionwomenstudy.org

Please let us know if you have any comments or suggestions. Contact: Barbara Crossley barbara.crossley@ceu.ox.ac.uk