07:00 p.m
Friday 02 September 2022
Agencies:
A recent BMJ review highlighted “evidence” that a type of vegetable may increase the risk of stomach cancer.
A 2020 BMJ review revealed that cutting back on pickled vegetables may help stave off stomach cancer.
The review notes that “high intakes of salty foods, such as fish preserved with salt, are associated with increased risk. This may be due to the salt itself or by nitrite-derived carcinogens in many preserved foods.”
According to the review, “some evidence” indicates that eating large amounts of pickled vegetables increases the risk of stomach cancer due to the production of N-nitroso compounds by mold or fungi, which are sometimes found in these foods.
Pickling is the process of preserving foods by packing them in vinegar, water, salt and sometimes sugar.
A report by the World Cancer Research Fund (WCRF), titled “Diet, Nutrition, Physical Activity, and Stomach Cancer”, said evidence for salt-preserved vegetables comes primarily from Asia.
One of these studies was published in the journal Cancer Science. It found that eating pickled vegetables was “significantly associated” with stomach cancer.
“It is widely known that vegetable consumption contributes to a reduced risk of stomach cancer,” the researchers wrote in the study.
The researchers highlight the fact that rates of stomach cancer remain high in both Japanese and Korean populations, even though they consume large amounts of total vegetables.
They hypothesized that “this may be due to the fact that Japanese and Koreans consume mainly processed vegetables, such as cooked, salted or pickled vegetables, rather than fresh ones.”
To determine whether consumption of fresh and pickled vegetables has different effects on stomach cancer risk in Japanese and Korean populations, the researchers performed a meta-analysis (statistical analysis) of published epidemiological reports.
Eight studies on the consumption of fresh vegetables and 14 studies on the consumption of pickled vegetables related to gastric cancer risk were included in this analysis.
The researchers looked at four studies to explore differences in stomach cancer risk in men and women separately.
“We observed that higher intake of fresh vegetables was significantly associated with lower risk of stomach cancer, but higher intake of pickled vegetables was significantly associated with increased risk of stomach cancer,” the researchers wrote.
They concluded: “The results of this analysis provide evidence that high intake of pickled vegetables may increase stomach cancer risk and suggest that high consumption of fresh vegetables, rather than a large amount of pickled vegetables, is important for reducing stomach cancer risk.”
It should be noted that the evidence for salt in diets from elsewhere in the world is inconclusive – this may be due to difficulties in measuring total salt.
The World Cancer Research Fund (WCRF) notes, “Evidence for total salt intake, from studies around the world, has not shown a strong association with stomach cancer. More research needs to be done to examine the effect of high-salt foods commonly eaten in the West.”
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