A vegetarian diet can cut the risk of developing five cancers by as much as 30 per cent, new research shows.
Vegetarians have a 21 per cent reduced risk of contracting pancreatic cancer and a 9 per cent lower chance of breast cancer compared to meat eaters, the biggest study of its kind has found.
They also have a 12 per cent decreased danger of prostate cancer, 28 per cent less threat of kidney cancer and a 31 per cent lower risk of catching multiple types of myeloma.
Aurora Perez Cornago, who led the study at the University of Oxford, said: “Vegetarians typically consume more fruit, vegetables and fibre than meat eaters and no processed meat, which may contribute to lower risks of some cancers.”
However, the study also found vegetarians have double the risk of developing the most common type of oesophagus cancer, compared to meat eaters.
Ms Cornago theorised that this may be a result of vegetarians missing out on some vital nutrients that are more present in animal foods.
Similarly, vegans had a significantly higher risk of bowel cancer when compared with meat eaters.
Experts suggested this may be due to a low average intake of calcium compared with other people, and low intakes of other nutrients.
Cancer Research UK discovered that calcium lowers bowel cancer risk, with a large glass of milk a day linked to a 17 per cent reduction.
However, the Oxford team said more studies are needed since only 93 bowel cancers were found in the vegan group. For the other cancers investigated, there was no evidence to suggest that the risk in vegans differed from meat eaters, and for some less common cancers there were too few vegan cases to analyse.
The new study published in the British Journal of Cancer incorporated data from various studies across the globe, with most of the participants coming from the UK and US.
More than 1.5 million meat eaters were included, alongside 57,016 poultry eaters, 42,910 people who ate fish and no meat, 63,147 vegetarians and 8,849 vegans.
The participants were examined on their typical food intake over the last year and factors such as their BMI were taken into account.
The study investigated 17 different cancers including those of the gastrointestinal tract, lung, reproductive system, urinary tract, and blood cancer.
Previous studies have shown that eating processed meats (such as ham, bacon and salami), as well as red meat (such as beef, pork and lamb) can increase the risk of bowel cancer, and stomach cancer.
Whereas eating white meat like chicken and turkey has not presented a link to cancers.
Yet this study found that vegetarians also did not have a lower risk of bowel cancer, compared with meat eaters, which the researchers said was “inconsistent” with the knowledge that processed and red meat increases the risk.
They suggested this was likely because processed meat intake in the meat eating group was moderately low.
More research needs to be conducted in order to determine whether overall meat consumption is problematic when it comes to cancer or whether specific vegetarian diets lower cancer risk, according to the experts behind the study.
Amy Hirst, health information manager at Cancer Research UK, said the “high-quality study” offers some interesting insights, but the findings were not strong enough to draw definitive conclusions.
“More research in larger, more diverse populations is needed to better understand these patterns and what’s causing them,” she said.
