Vegetarian diet and cancer:
A meta-analysis by Huang T et al consisting of 7 studies with a total of 124,706 participants from the UK, Germany, USA, Netherlands and Japan investigated cancer incidence among vegetarians and non-vegetarians. All-cause mortality in vegetarians was found to be lower when compared to non-vegetarians. Researchers also found a statistically reduced rate for vegetarians in terms of cancer incidence of 18%. This study suggests vegetarians have a mortality advantage compared to non-vegetarians. (32)
A 12-year study investigated the relationship between diet and risk of certain cancers. Researchers followed 61,566 British men and women, which included 32,403 meat eaters, 8,562 non-meat eaters who ate fish but not meat (the “fish eaters”) and 20,601 vegetarians (ate neither fish nor meat). Over the follow-up period there were 3,350 incident cancers, including 2,204 among the meat eaters, 317 among the fish eaters and 829 among the vegetarians. In this study, cancer among meat eaters was 3.8%, among fish-eaters, 0.5%, and among vegetarians, 1.3%. The study found that compared to meat-eaters, vegetarians had a 53%, 45% and 74% reduced risk in bladder, leukemia/lymphoma, and stomach cancers, respectively. Looking at all cancers combined, vegetarians were 12 per cent less likely to develop cancer than meat eaters, while fish eaters were 18 per cent less likely to develop cancer. (33)