Fig. 2.
Volcano plot for the association between lipid metabolites and colorectal cancer risk in the EPIC cohort. Negative log10 p-values (y-axis) and adjusted odds ratios (x-axis) obtained from conditional logistic regression models per doubling of lipid metabolite concentration, conditioned on matching variables (study centre, sex, age at blood collection, follow-up time since blood collection, time of day and fasting status at blood collection, menopausal status [women], phase of menstrual cycle [pre-menopausal women only] and current use of exogenous hormones [women] and adjusted for baseline measurements of education level (no schooling/primary, secondary/professional/technical, university/higher, not specified/missing), Cambridge physical activity index (inactive, moderately inactive, moderately active, active, unknown), smoking status (never, former, current, unknown), height (cm, continuous), Body mass index (kg/m2, continuous), alcohol use at recruitment (g/day, continuous), energy intake (kcal/day, continuous), red and processed meat consumption (g/day, continuous), dairy intake (g/day, continuous) and fibre intake (g/day, continuous). Each coloured shape represents one lipid metabolite with acylcarnitines in green, phosphatidylcholines in blue and sphingomyelins in purple. The vertical grey line represents an adjusted odds ratio of 1.00. Circles above the horizontal red dotted line or red dashed line represent lipid metabolites inversely (left of grey line) associated with colorectal cancer risk at a significance level of p-value <0.05 or after correction for multiple comparisons based on the effective number of independent tests (ENT) pENT <0.05, respectively. C, acylcarnitine; OR, odds ratio; PC aa, diacyl-phosphatidylcholine; PC ae, acylakyl-phosphatidylcholine; SM, sphingomyelin, SM (OH), Hydroxysphingomyelin.