Professor Tim Key
About
Professor Key’s main interests are the roles of diet and sex hormones in cancer, particularly cancers of the breast, prostate and colon, and the health status of vegetarians and vegans.
His recent papers have shown that breast cancer risk is strongly related to the serum concentration of oestradiol, that vegetarian diets do not reduce the incidence of colorectal cancer but may reduce the risk of cancers of the stomach, bladder and blood, and that diets containing only plant proteins may reduce insulin-like growth factor-I, a growth factor that appears to be important in the development of several types of cancer.
He currently works mostly on the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC), as the principal investigator of the Oxford cohort of 65,000 participants, including 30,000 people who don’t eat meat. He is also chairman of the EPIC prostate cancer group, co-ordinates the Endogenous Hormones and Breast Cancer Collaborative Group, and is a member of the UK Department of Health’s Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition.
Expertise
- Nutritional, hormonal and genetic factors in breast and prostate cancer
- Environmental and genetic determinants of endogenous hormone levels
- Cancer and death rates in vegetarians and vegans
Selected publications
- TERT gene harbors multiple variants associated with pancreatic cancer susceptibility (2015)
- Alcohol intake and breast cancer in the European prospective investigation into cancer and nutrition (2015)
- Prediction of individual genetic risk to prostate cancer using a polygenic score (2015)
- Main nutrient patterns are associated with prospective weight change in adults from 10 European countries (2015)
Media experience
Professor Key has extensive media experience across print and broadcast and in both national and international media.
Recent media work
- Cut out a sausage a day for a long, healthy life
- New cancer alert over eating just one steak a week
- No need to panic over processed meat cancer link
- Bacon and sausages rank with cigarettes and alcohol as cancer risk, says WHO
- Never mind healthy veg – can a diet full of FAT combat cancer?
- How 15-minute run a day can cut the risk of breast cancer