{"id":1040,"date":"2015-03-18T16:20:17","date_gmt":"2015-03-18T16:20:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/sitenews\/2015\/03\/18\/vegetarian-diet-cuts-risk-of-certain-cancer-adventist-study-finds\/"},"modified":"2015-03-18T16:20:17","modified_gmt":"2015-03-18T16:20:17","slug":"vegetarian-diet-cuts-risk-of-certain-cancer-adventist-study-finds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/vegetarian-diet-cuts-risk-of-certain-cancer-adventist-study-finds\/","title":{"rendered":"Vegetarian Diet Cuts Risk of Certain Cancer, Adventist Study Finds"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a>16 March 2015 | Silver Spring, Maryland, United States [Andrew McChesney\/Adventist Review]<\/span> A vegetarian diet may reduce your risk of certain kinds of cancer by 22 percent, according to a new analysis from the Adventist Health Study-2.<\/p>\n

Researchers at Loma Linda University Health found that eating a plant-based diet offers significant protection against cancers of the colon and rectum, the second-leading cause of cancer death in the United States after lung cancer.<\/p>\n

The findings, published online in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine<\/em><\/a> this week, are the first to emerge from the university\u2019s multimillion-dollar Adventist Health Study-2 investigation that links diet to specific forms of cancer.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe balance of scientific evidence seems to implicate red meat and processed meat as being linked to a higher risk of colorectal cancer, whereas a diet rich in fiber \u2014 not fiber supplements \u2014 is linked with lower risk,\u201d the study’s lead researcher, Dr. Michael Orlich, said Tuesday. \u201cThe vegans, lacto-ovo vegetarians, and pescovegetarians in our study all avoid red and processed meat and eat an increased amount of a variety of whole plant foods.\u201d<\/p>\n

The study, which tracked the food questionnaires and medical records of 77,659 Seventh-day Adventists over seven years, determined that vegetarians are 22 percent less likely to develop colorectal cancers than non-vegetarians.<\/p>\n

Of those vegetarians, vegans were 16 percent less at risk of cancer, and lacto-ovo vegetarians, who eat milk and eggs, were 18 percent less at risk, although results for these groups did not achieve statistical significance.<\/p>\n

The least at risk of the vegetarian groups were the pescovegetarians, or vegetarians who eat fish. They were 43 percent less likely to develop cancer.<\/p>\n

Dr. Gary Fraser, principal investigator for Adventist Health Studies-2 and a co-author of this week\u2019s report, cautioned against interpreting the results as a message to eat more fish.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe main message is to avoid all meats, as the main result was that all<\/em> vegetarians as a group did better than the non-vegetarians,\u201d Fraser said in an e-mail interview. \u201cThus from this paper alone what one can really say is that replacing meats with vegetables, nuts, legumes, and fruits will most likely decrease risk of colorectal cancer.\u201d<\/p>\n

Orlich, an assistant professor of preventive medicine at Loma Linda University, said it was premature to conclude that the pescovegetarians\u2019 impressive results were due to fish consumption.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe differences between the pescovegetarians and other vegetarian groups may be due partly \u2014 or possibly entirely \u2014 to chance variation,\u201d he told the Adventist Review<\/em>. \u201cTheir diets also differ in other ways beside fish consumption. We will do follow-up analyses examining the specific associations of meat and fish with colorectal cancer, adjusting for the consumption of other foods.\u201d<\/p>\n

Non-vegetarians comprised half the participants in the study, and they were defined as eating meat at least weekly. Researchers, who identified 380 cases of colon cancer and 110 cases of rectal cancer among participants, said the non-vegetarians ate less meat than the average American.<\/p>\n

The study underscores that advanced medical screening procedures such as the colonoscopy have saved many lives but it is even better to prevent cancer, potentially through diet.<\/p>\n

The colorectal cancer report is part of Loma Linda University Health\u2019s ongoing Adventist Health Studies<\/a>, initiated in 1958 and among the world\u2019s longest running research about health and longevity. Its previous findings have connected the Adventist diet to lower rates of obesity, diabetes, and high blood pressure.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a history going back to the 1950s of studies on Seventh-day Adventists, and most have found that they\u2019re healthy, long-lived populations, so it\u2019s interesting to probe and see why,\u201d Orlich told The Wall Street Journal<\/a> in discussing the latest cancer findings.<\/p>\n

The Adventist Health Studies are also often discussed at healthcare seminars and conferences. CNN International television devoted a segment of its \u201cVital Signs with Dr. Sanjay Gupta\u201d program to the research in February.<\/p>\n

The Adventist Health Study-2 started in 2002 with funding from the National Cancer Institute, a U.S. government agency. In 2011, the National Cancer Institute awarded it a $5.5 million five-year grant to continue the research. [ted<\/em>NEWS]<\/p>\n

[photo: Peggy Greb via Wikimedia Commons]<\/p>\n

\n

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E-mail: tednews@ted-adventist.org<\/a>
Website: www.ted-adventist.org<\/p>\n

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You are free to re-print any portion of the bulletin without need for special permission. However, we kindly request that you identify ted<\/em>NEWS whenever you publish these materials.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

<\/a>16 March 2015 | Silver Spring, Maryland, United States [Andrew McChesney\/Adventist Review]<\/span> A vegetarian diet may reduce your risk of certain kinds of cancer by 22 percent, according to a new analysis from the Adventist Health Study-2.<\/p>\n

Researchers at Loma Linda University Health found that eating a plant-based diet offers significant protection against cancers of the colon and rectum, the second-leading cause of cancer death in the United States after lung cancer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1038,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1569,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1040","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-communication-media-technology","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1040","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1040"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1040\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1038"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1040"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1040"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1040"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}