Most of us know someone who has cut back on meat lately. The reason is usually heart health, blood sugar or an extra year of life. Cancer rarely enters the conversation.
A new analysis in the British Journal of Cancer suggests maybe it should. Across 1.8 million adults in the United States, Europe and Asia, vegetarians had a 31 percent lower risk of multiple myeloma, a blood cancer, than meat eaters.
The same analysis linked vegetarian diets to a 28 percent lower risk of kidney cancer. Pancreatic cancer risk was 21 percent lower, prostate cancer 12 percent lower, and breast cancer 9 percent lower.
The research was led by Oxford Population Health's Cancer Epidemiology Unit and funded by the World Cancer Research Fund. Participants were followed for a median of 16 years.
Also read: What you eat matters more than how it was processed, a major new analysis finds
What the researchers meant by vegetarian
The team split participants into five diet groups. These were meat eaters, poultry eaters, pescatarians (fish but no meat), vegetarians (dairy and/or eggs but no meat or fish) and vegans. About 72,000 people in the pooled sample were vegetarians or vegans.
The analysis adjusted for the factors that usually muddy diet research. These included BMI, smoking, alcohol intake, physical activity, education, diabetes history and ethnicity.
The lower risks held after those adjustments. The researchers also repeated the main analyses in people who had never smoked, and the pattern looked much the same.
Where the picture gets more complicated
This is an observational analysis, not a clinical trial. It can show patterns but cannot prove that cutting out meat is what lowers the risk. However, the study's authors flagged a few caveats.
Also read: A new epilepsy diagnosis in midlife may carry a six-fold higher risk of early dementia
The picture was not all one-way, either. Vegetarians in the pooled data had a higher rate of squamous cell carcinoma of the esophagus, a cancer of the food pipe.
Vegans had a higher rate of colorectal cancer, and the authors did not pinpoint a cause for either finding.
Readers worried about personal cancer risk should discuss diet changes with their doctor. The researchers themselves recommend building meals around fruit, vegetables, whole grains and pulses, with less processed meat on the plate.
Also read: How fast you eat may be one of the most overlooked reasons you gain weight
Also read: How eating a handful of walnuts every day may protect your memory and brain function
This article is made and published by Jesper Bengtson, who may have used AI in the preparation.