Abstract
AIMS: This study's primary purpose was to determine whether earlier findings suggesting an association between sporadic Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (sCJD), a transmissible spongiform encephalopathy of humans and specific dietary components could be replicated. The a priori hypotheses were that consumption of (i) foods likely to contain organ tissue and (ii) raw/rare meat are associated with increased sCJD risk. STUDY DESIGN: Population-based case-control study. PLACE AND DURATION OF STUDY: Department of Neurology, School of Medicine, Loma Linda University, Loma Linda, CA, USA; 4 years. METHODOLOGY: An 11-state case-control study of pathologically confirmed, definite sCJD cases, matched controls, and a sample of control-surrogates was conducted. Ninety-six percent (106/110) of the case data was obtained in 1991-1993, prior to variant CJD publicity. RESULTS: Using control self-responses, consumption of hot dogs, sausage, pepperoni, kielbasa, "other" canned meat, poultry liver, any stomach/intestine, beef stomach/intestine, any organ tissue, and beef organ tissue was individually associated with increased sCJD risk; odds ratios (OR) ranged from 2.4 to 7.2 (0.003