Past research by the World Cancer Research Fund and the American Institute for Cancer Research has shown that eating lots of red or processed meat is linked to a higher rate of cancers of the oesophagus, stomach, pancreas, lung, endometrium and prostate.
The new study, entitled Cancer Incidence In British Vegetarians, involved more than 60,000 people and it confirmed a lower risk of both stomach and bladder cancer for vegeterians, Reuters reported.
But the most striking and surprising difference was in cancers of the blood - such as leukaemia, multiple myeloma and non-Hodgkin lymphoma - where the risk of disease was 45 per cent lower in vegetarians than in meat eaters.
In the case of multiple myeloma, a relatively rare cancer of the bone marrow, vegetarians were 75 per cent less likely to develop the disease than meat-eaters.
The apparently protective effect of a vegetarian diet, however, did not seem to stretch to bowel cancer, a major killer, contrary to previous research.
And the study found that the incidence of cervix cancer was two times higher in vegetarians than in meat eaters.
The study has been published in the latest issue of the British Journal Of Cancer.
'More research is needed to substantiate these results and to look for reasons for the differences,' said Professor Tim Key, study author from the Cancer Research UK epidemiology unit at Oxford University.
Prof Key and his co-authors, from universities in the United Kingdom and New Zealand, followed 61,566 meat eaters and vegetarians for over 12 years, during which 3,350 of the participants were diagnosed with cancer.
The study looked at 20 different types of cancer and found the differences in risk were independent of other factors such as smoking, alcohol intake and obesity, which can all increase the chance of developing cancer.
'At the moment, these findings are not strong enough to ask for particularly large changes in the diets of people following an average balanced diet,' Prof Key was quoted as saying by the BBC.
His study noted that the differences observed 'might be linked to particular types of meat or to other dietary or lifestyle characteristics of non-meat eaters that were not adjusted for in the current analysis'.
Experts agree that the results of the study should be treated with caution, reported the BBC.
A spokesman for Cancer Research UK, which funded the research, said, 'These interesting results add to the evidence that what we eat affects our chances of developing cancer. We know that eating a lot of red and processed meat increases the risk of stomach cancer...But the links between diet and cancer risk are complex and more research is needed to see how big a part diet plays and which specific dietary factors are most important.'
Myeloma UK said this was the first data of its kind for the bone marrow cancer 'and for that reason we are treating it with caution'.
'Dietary advice to myeloma patients remains aligned with national guidance - that they should eat a healthy, balanced diet high in fibre, fruit and vegetables and low in saturated fat, salt and red and processed meat.'
Remember the 2009 'O' level question that we practised? The question on food has a figure showing the causes of death in DCs and it was stated that obesity can be one of the main factors affecting cancer. The article above kind of confirms what the figure says. Obesity is due to large consumption of food and perhaps the consumption of meat especially the fatty ones. So are you interested to be a vegetarian? Or at least for a start, consume more fruits and vegetables?
No comments:
Post a Comment