PARIS, Mar. 1 (Benin News) –
According to a study published in the open access journal “BMC Medicine”, eating meat five times or less per week is associated with a lower risk of cancer in general.
Researcher Cody Watling and colleagues at the University of Oxford (UK) studied the relationship between diet and cancer risk by analyzing data collected from 472,377 British adults recruited into the UK Biobank between 2006 and 2010.
The participants, aged 40 to 70, reported how often they ate meat and fish, and the researchers calculated the incidence of new cancers that developed over an average of 11 years from the records. medical.
In their analyses, they took into account diabetes status and socio-demographic, socio-economic and lifestyle factors. 247,571 (52%) of participants ate meat more than five times per week, 205,382 (44%) of participants ate meat five times or less per week, 10,696 (2%) ate fish but no meat and 8,685 (2%) were vegetarian or vegan. A total of 54,961 participants (12%) developed cancer during the study period.
Researchers found that the overall cancer risk was 2% lower in those who ate meat five times or less per week, 10% lower in those who ate fish but no meat, and 14% lower in vegetarians. and vegans, compared to those who ate meat more than five times a week.
By comparing the incidence of certain cancers with participants’ diets, the authors found that those who ate meat five times or less per week had a 9% lower risk of colorectal cancer than those who ate meat. meat more than five times a week.
They also found that the risk of prostate cancer was 20% lower in men who ate fish but no meat and 31% lower in men who ate a vegetarian diet, compared to those who ate meat. more than five times a week.
Postmenopausal women who ate a vegetarian diet had an 18% lower risk of breast cancer than women who ate meat more than five times a week. However, the results suggest this is because vegetarian women tend to have a lower body mass index (BMI) than meat-eating women.
The researchers point out that the observational nature of their study does not allow conclusions to be drawn on a causal relationship between diet and cancer risk. Additionally, since the UK Biobank dietary data was collected at a point in time and not over a continuous period, it may not be representative of participants’ diets over their lifetime.
The authors therefore suggest that future research should investigate the associations between diets containing little or no meat and the risk of individual cancers in larger populations and with longer follow-up periods.
