Vegetarian diets and cancer risk — pooled analysis of 1.8 million adults across three continents
In plain English
The largest study ever of vegetarian diets and cancer, pooling nine prospective cohorts across the UK, US, Taiwan and India — 1.8 million people including over 60,000 vegetarians and nearly 9,000 vegans — followed for a median 16 years. Lower-meat diets were associated with reduced risk of five cancers, with vegetarians and pescatarians showing lower rates of colorectal, breast, prostate, stomach and other cancers. Honestly, the picture was not uniform: vegans showed a slightly higher colorectal cancer risk, a finding the authors flag for further scrutiny.
Why it matters
Across 1.8M adults on three continents, vegetarian and low-meat diets were linked to lower risk of five cancers.
Informs: Cancer·Plant-Based Score
Provenance
- Design
- Meta-analysis
- Sample size (n)
- 1,817,477
- Follow-up
- 16 years
- Peer-reviewed
- Yes
- Replications
- 3
- Funding
- Public / academic
- Funders
- Cancer Research UK, World Cancer Research Fund, Wellcome Trust
- Institutions
- University of Oxford (Cancer Epidemiology Unit), Tzu Chi University Taiwan
decades.plus score
A transparent 0–100 weighted sum across six components. Higher scores reflect bigger, cleaner, more replicated work.
Caveats
Observational; diet was self-reported and people who avoid meat differ in smoking, weight and wealth despite adjustment. The unexpected higher colorectal risk among vegans may reflect chance, reverse causation, or differences in processed plant-food intake — it needs replication.
