New study: With this diet you reduce your risk of colon cancer

Red meat, lots of fat, hardly any vegetables and fruit, little exercise and smoking: these are all factors that damage men’s health and promote the development of colon cancer. And what else are they? Right, easy to change. In addition to smoking, an unhealthy diet is one of the biggest risk factors for colorectal cancer.

This risk can be minimized by changing your eating habits – especially to plant-based foods. Here, plant-based does not mean plant-based. As a new study in the South Korean capital revealed, there is a form of vegetarian diet that significantly reduces the risk of colon cancer.

New study: With this diet you reduce your risk of colon cancer

The study involved 79,952 men and 93,475 women who were followed for more than 19 years. The focus of the study was to compare the frequency of colon cancer cases with the different diets. What was special about the study, however, was the subdivision: An unhealthy and a healthy diet were compared – but both were exclusively plant-based.

Just because you don’t eat animal products doesn’t mean you’re eating healthily. And so the South Korean researchers divided the plant-based foods into two categories based on their nutritional value: For example, products made from white flour and refined sugar, as well as fruit juices and potatoes fell into the unhealthy category. The healthy group, on the other hand, included foods such as fruit, vegetables, nuts, whole grain products, high-quality oils, and coffee and tea.

A healthy plant-based diet reduces risk by 22 percent

In the end, the study found that men in the healthy plant-based category had a 22 percent lower risk of developing colon cancer in their lifetime.

The result clearly shows that the purely plant-based diet must be healthy in order to have a positive effect on men’s health. In essence, this means eating lots of vegetables, fruit, high-fiber foods and whole grain products and avoiding sugary foods and white flour products – meat anyway.

The reasons for this are obvious: in addition to vitamins, the foods mentioned also contain roughage and antioxidants, all of which are said to have health-promoting effects. Among other things, they suppress chronic inflammation in the intestines, which can cause cancer in the long term, and have a positive effect on the intestinal microbiome, which in turn strengthens the immune system.

However, the result of the study should not hide the fact that colorectal cancer can only be prevented with a healthy diet. Avoiding tobacco and alcohol and getting enough exercise are also crucial factors in the fight against cancer. Just like regular check-ups.

This article was written by Martin Arnold