"Curt Nelson" > wrote in message
...
>
> VEG DIET CUTS COLON CANCER RISK
>
> NEW YORK - Eating a meat-free, vegetarian diet may reduce the risk of
> colorectal cancer, new research suggests. After following more than 10,000
> people for 17 years, investigators found that vegetarians were 15 percent
> less likely to develop colorectal cancer than meat-eaters.
>
> This study adds to the "increasing scientific evidence" that a diet rich
in
> fruit, vegetables and fiber and low in meat--especially red and processed
> meat--can prevent colorectal cancer, study author Dr. Miguel Sanjoaquin of
> the University of Oxford, UK, told Reuters Health.
>
> However, Sanjoaquin cautioned that only a small number of study
> participants--95--developed colorectal cancer, making it impossible to
> determine if fewer vegetarians developed cancer simply due to chance.
> However, Sanjoaquin noted that a previous study featuring more cases of
> colorectal cancer confirmed these findings, and he added that it makes
> sense that eating vegetarian could cut cancer risk. The fat in red meat
> increases the excretion of substances called bile acids, he explained,
> which in turn produce other substances that encourage tumor growth.
>
> Furthermore, meat contains natural compounds and substances formed
> during processing and high-temperature cooking that can disrupt the
> normal balance of cell growth in the colon, potentially triggering the
> cancer, Sanjoaquin noted. Alternatively, substances in fruits and
> vegetables--staples of the vegetarian diet--"may inhibit these adverse
> effects," he added.
>
> Full story:
> www.nlm.nih.gov

I don't find this particularly persuasive. The author himself says that the
small incidence of colorectal cancer in the group means that any conclusions
are suspect. If the results are typical, which may well be the case as this
cancer accounts for 13% of all cancers diagnosed in the US, and even if the
conclusions are valid, then a meat-eater in the group had about a 1% chance
of getting it and a vegan about a 0.85% chance. But a vegan is likely to
have a number of lifestyle differences with a meat eater, any of which might
be part of the driving factor. Colo-rectal cancer is highly curable when
diagnosed early, and deadly when not. Rather that fussing about diet people
would do better to have regular colonoscopies.