Doctors already recommend eating a diet that is high in fruit and
vegetables and low in red and processed meat in order to maintain
overall health.
However, the study suggested that eating no meat at all may also help to reduce the cancer risk.
The UK study looked at more than 50,000 men and women aged between
20 and 89 recruited in the 1990s and divided participants into
meat-eaters, fish-eaters, vegetarians and vegans.
During
follow-up there was a significantly lower incidence of all cancers
among the fish-eaters and vegetarians, compared with the meat eaters.
However,
the researchers also found a higher rate of colorectal cancer – a
disease usually linked with eating red meat – among the vegetarians.
Writing
in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Professor Tim Key,
Cancer Research UK epidemiologist and an author of the study, said the
results need further study.
He said: "This study showed that the
rate of cancer was slightly lower among the vegetarians than among the
meat-eaters. Bowel cancer was higher in vegetarians than in
meat-eaters. This is a bit surprising, and could be chance.
"It
highlights that we don't fully understand whether meat really does
increase the risk for bowel cancer and this study is not definitive. It
is very important that we continue with good quality, robust research
to see whether these results are confirmed and to examine the complex
relationship between diet and cancer risk."
The study comes as
new research showed eating a daily portion of mushrooms could slash the
risk of breast cancer by up to two-thirds.
Scientists found women
consuming at least ten grams, or around a third of an ounce, of fresh
mushrooms every day were 64 per cent less likely to develop a tumour.
Dried mushrooms had a slightly less protective effect, reducing the risk by around half.
Experts
at the University of Western Australia in Perth studied more than 2,000
Chinese women. They found women who combined a mushroom diet with
regular consumption of green tea saw an even greater benefit, with the
risk reduced by almost 90 per cent.
Researchers say the latest
findings, published in the International Journal of Cancer, do not
prove eating mushrooms will stop cancer and more studies are needed to
confirm the results.
Around 40,000 women a year in Britain are
diagnosed with breast cancer. The disease affects one in nine women at
some point in their lives.
By Louise Gray
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/5001562/Vegetarians-could-have-lower-risk-of-cancer.html