Vegetarians Avoid More Cancers
July 3rd, 2009Source: news.bbc.co.uk
UK, July 1, 2009: Vegetarians are generally less likely than meat eaters to develop cancer, but this does not apply to all forms of the disease, according to a major study published in the British Journal of Cancer. Vegetarians developed notably fewer cancers of the blood, bladder and stomach cancer.The study followed 61,566 British men and women, categorizing them as meat-eaters, those who ate fish but not meat, and those who ate neither meat nor fish. Vegetarians were approximately half as likely as meat-eaters to develop cancers of the lymph or the blood, about 1/3 as likely to develop stomach cancers, and 75% less likely to develop multiple myeloma, a relatively rare cancer of the bone marrow. Vegetarians also got notably fewer cases of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and cancers of the stomach or bladder. Fish eaters fell somewhere between those two groups. But cancer of the bowel, one of the commonest forms, did not show this reduction for vegetarians.
Professor Tim Key, the lead author, said it was impossible to draw strong conclusions from this one single study. Researchers stress that more studies are needed and that people should continue to eat a healthy, balanced diet high in fibre, fruit and vegetables and low in saturated fat, salt and red and processed meat.
