• Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Arnold School of Public Health, University of South Carolina, Columbia, South Carolina.
• Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston, South Carolina.
• Department of Medicine, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, Missouri.
• Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Arnold School of Public Health, University of South Carolina, Columbia, South Carolina. stecks@mailbox.sc.edu.

Advanced glycation end-products (AGEs) are implicated in the pathogenesis of several chronic diseases including cancer. AGEs are produced endogenously but can also be consumed from foods. AGE formation in food is accelerated during cooking at high temperatures. Certain high fat or highly processed foods have high AGE values. The objective of the study was to assign and quantify NƐ-carboxymethyl-lysine (CML)-AGE content in food and investigate the association between dietary AGE intake and breast cancer risk in the Prostate, Lung, Colorectal and Ovarian Cancer Screening Trial (PLCO). The study included women enrolled in the intervention arm who were cancer-free at baseline and completed a baseline questionnaire and food frequency questionnaire (DQX). CML-AGE values were assigned and quantified to foods in the DQX using a published AGE database. Cox proportional hazards models were used to estimate the hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% CIs of breast cancer among all women, and stratified by race/ethnicity, invasiveness of disease, and hormone receptor status. After a median 11.5 years of follow-up, 1,592 women were diagnosed with breast cancer. Higher CML-AGE intake was associated with increased risk of breast cancer among all women (HRQ5 VS Q1:1.30, 95% CI: 1.04-1.62; P-trend: 0.04) and in non-Hispanic white women (HRT3 VS T1: 1.21, 95% CI: 1.02-1.44). Increased CML-AGE intake was associated with increased risk of in situ (HRT3 VS T1: 1.49, 95% CI: 1.11-2.01) and hormone receptor positive (HRT3 VS T1: 1.24, 95% CI: 1.01-1.53) breast cancers. In conclusion, high intake of dietary AGE may contribute to increased breast cancer.