A plant-based diet rich in vegetables, whole grains, nuts and legumes slashes the risk of bowel cancer in men, but not in women, according to a new study.
The third most common cancer in the UK, roughly 43,000 people in the country are diagnosed with bowel cancer, also known as colorectal cancer, each year, according to Cancer Research UK. Characterised by changes in your bowel habits, persistent blood in your poo, and persistent lower abdominal pain, bloating or discomfort, according to the NHS, it's also the second most common cause of cancer deaths, killing nearly 17,000 people every year in the UK.
Most cases of bowel cancer are preventable, and there's a strong link with a person's diet, with roughly 13% caused by eating processed meat, 11% caused by overweight and obesity, and 6% caused by alcohol drinking, Cancer Research UK said. New research suggests a plant-based diet could cut the risk bowel cancer by 22% in men.
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The study, published in the BMC Medicine journal, involved asking 79,952 men and 93,475 women in the USA how often they ate certain foods and drink from a list of more than 180 items, and what portion sizes they consumed. It found men who ate the most healthy, plant-based foods were 22% less likely to develop bowel cancer compared with those who at the least.
Healthy plant foods includes whole grains, fruits, vegetables, vegetable oils, nuts, legumes like lentils and chickpeas, tea and coffee. Less healthy plant foods included refined grains fruit juices, potatoes and added sugars, while animal foods were things like animal fat, dairy, fish, seafood and meat.
Despite seeing a big reduction in the risk for men eating a healthy plant-based diet, researchers found no such link in women, which the study's co-author, Jihye Kim, from from Kyung Hee University in South Korea, partly puts down to men having a higher risk of developing bowel cancer than women do. In the UK, one in 15 males and one in 18 females will be diagnosed with bowel cancer in their lifetime, according to Cancer Research UK.
Kim said: "We speculate that the antioxidants found in foods such as fruits, vegetables, and whole grains could contribute to lowering colorectal cancer risk by suppressing chronic inflammation, which can lead to cancer. As men tend to have a higher risk of colorectal cancer than women, we propose that this could help explain why eating greater amounts of healthy plant-based foods was associated with reduced colorectal cancer risk in men but not women."
There was also a link with race an ethnicity in the results, with the risk reduction higher among some groups like Japanese American and white men than among African American or Latino men. Further research is needed to understand this relationship.
The researchers warned the observational nature of their study means no conclusions can be made about the causal relationship between plant-based food and bowel cancer. Nonetheless, they said: "Our findings support that improving the quality of plant foods and reducing animal food consumption can help prevent colorectal cancer."
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