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European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC) is one of the largest cohort studies in the world, with more than half a million (521 000) participants recruited across 10 European countries and followed for over 20 years.

EPIC was designed to investigate the relationships between diet, nutritional status, lifestyle and environmental factors, and the incidence of cancer and other chronic diseases. EPIC investigators are active in all fields of epidemiology, and important contributions have been made in nutritional epidemiology using biomarker analysis and questionnaire information, as well as genetic and lifestyle investigations.

EPIC-Oxford is the Oxford component of EPIC, and has a prospective cohort of 57 500 men and women recruited throughout the United Kingdom in 1993—2000. Recruitment was targeted to include as many vegetarians as possible, and approximately 50% of the participants do not eat meat. The main objective of the study is to examine how diet influences the risk of cancer, particularly for the most common types of cancer in Britain, as well as other chronic diseases.

The Principal Investigator for EPIC-Oxford is Professor Tim Key. His main interests are the roles of diet and sex hormones in the aetiology of cancer, particularly cancers of the breast, prostate and colon.

EPIC-Oxford is supported by Cancer Research UK, the Medical Research Council and the Wellcome Trust.

For more information on the publications from EPIC-Oxford please see their website here.