No Strong Association between Colon Cancer Risk and Fruits-Veggies

Filed in archive Cancer , Cases , Functional Foods on September 27, 2007

There has been no strong association found between intake of fruits and vegetables and the reduction of colon cancer risk.

A team of researchers led by Anita Koushik, Ph.D., formerly of the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, analyzed the association between fruit and vegetable intake and colon cancer risk by pooling the results of 14 studies that included 756,217 men and women who were followed for 6 to 20 years.

Their analysis showed that while fruit and vegetable intake was not strongly associated with overall colon cancer risk, there may be a lower risk of cancer of the distal colon-the left-hand side of the colon-among those who consumed the largest amounts of fruits and vegetables.

However, the difference in the associations for cancers on the left and right sides was not statistically significant.

The notion in this matter has always been that eating fruits and vegetables will reduce cancer risk, in this case colon cancer. However, in previous studies that looked into this, the results have been inconsistent.

Should these results prevent us from eating more fruits and vegetables? Of course not! There are a lot more benefits from doing so.

Source: Science Daily, JNCI Abstract