The vegetarianism cancer prevention formulae: Sea foods + vegetables > only vegetables.

The practice of abstaining from meat and other by-products of animal-slaughter has been in existence since 1840. Vegetarianism has now evolved into a style of living with most of its practitioners adapting to other forms of dietary patterns. Aside health-related reasons, vegetarians attribute their motivation to religion, animal right activism, political, cultural, environmental or aesthetic beliefs. Vegetarianism comes in a variety of forms with regards to the diet. The most common forms are semi-vegetarianism, which includes infrequent eating of meat; lacto, only dairy products; ovo, eggs but not dairy products; lacto-ovo, eggs and dairy products; pescetarianism, includes fish and other sea foods and veganism, without animal flesh, dairy products or eggs. Comparatively, the vegetarian population has a lower overall mortality rate and a reduced incidence of various non-communicable diseases like cardiovascular diseases, inflammatory conditions and other diet-related complications than omnivores.

However, an inappropriately planned veggie diet puts the person at a high risk of blood-related disorders as a result vitamin B12 deficiency among others.

The association between this practice and improved health has received much attention from the science world leading to cutting-edge researches in that field. The latest is a 7 year tightly controlled study led by Michael Orlich M.D., Ph.D., an assistant professor of preventive medicine at Loma Linda University. The study addresses the impact of vegetarian and non-vegetarian diets on colon cancer risk. Prior to this study, there was no clearly known connection between vegetarian dietary pattern and colorectal cancer risk. About half of the 77,659 adults recruited were non-vegetarians – had meat in their diets – whereas the other half consisted of 4 different groups of vegetarians namely: semi, lacto-ovo, pesco and vegans. These vegetarians also had low intake of sweet, snack foods, refined grains, caloric beverages but had increased intake of fruits. Collectively, the vegetarian group on the average had a 22% reduction in the risk of developing colorectal cancer compared with the non-vegetarians.

Individually, the semi-veggies, vegans, lacto-ovo and pesco-vegetarians achieved 8%, 16%, 18% and 43% reductions in the risk of developing colorectal cancer respectively.

The study although provides evidence of linkage between vegetarian dietary pattern and cancer risk, there is no molecular detail to show whether the reduction is as a result of the vegetables or decreased consumption of red meat. There is however, some works to show the protective effects of vegetables on the immune system and the consequences of excess red meat intake. The striking reduction shown by the pescetarians, proves that there is more to eating vegetables alone. The sea foods especially fish might have played a very key role in colon protection against cancer. The dietary pattern of the semi-vegetarians presented the least protection – 8% – against colorectal cancer. It is not clearly known if the meat in the diet attributed to this effect since the type of meat, size and frequency of intake were not explicitly stated in the study. The study also fails to discuss the extracurricular activities such as smoking life, alcohol intake and exercise pattern of both groups which I believe will have a significant impact on the results. Obviously if the vegetarian groups adapt to living a life free of alcohol and smoking and exercise often, an increased protection will be achieved compared with the non-vegetarians. A more comprehensive study is needed to discuss these issues and investigate the molecular linkage between the pesco-vegetarian dietary pattern and risk reduction to colorectal cancer. Also, the reduction in cancer risk should be related to other significant nutrient – vitamin B12 – deficiencies since most of these importance nutrients are generally not found in vegetables.

Regardless, this study provides some level of evidence of the protective effects of vegetarian diets on the colon which could be used as a preventive therapy against colorectal carcinoma. Being ranked as the fourth leading cancer in the world, colorectal cancer also ranks second in America and claims about 600,000 lives yearly. With a limited therapy, it is very prudent to start comprehensive preventive measures of which a carefully planned pescetarian diet could be resorted to.