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Blood Pressure
& Heart Disease
Cancer
Diabetes
Gallstones
Kidney Stones
Osteoporosis
Protein
Calcium
Dairy Products
Asthma
Common Concerns
Vitamin B12
Pregnancy, Infants,
& Children
Mad Cow Disease
The New Four
Food Groups
Further Reading
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Preventing Cancer
A vegetarian diet helps to prevent cancer.
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"If
you change to a vegan diet, and do it very vigorously,
you have enormous power...
You can, I believe, prevent most cases of
cancer if you combine dietary changes with avoiding tobacco.
You could prevent probably 70% or 80% of cancers,
just by those steps alone. And, obviously, there’s a whole host
of other diseases that you would be able to
live without."
NEAL BARNARD,
M.D.
President, Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine,
author, Turn Off The Fat
Genes |
Numerous epidemiological and
clinical studies have shown
that vegetarians are nearly 50 percent less likely
to die from cancer than non-vegetarians.1
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"A
six-year study of 88,000 nurses
by Boston’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital
found that those who ate meat every day
were more than twice as likely to get colon cancer
as those who avoided meat."
NEW ENGLAND JOURNAL OF
MEDICINE
13 December 1990 |
Similarly, breast cancer
rates are dramatically lower in nations,
such as China, that follow plant-based
diets.
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"Both
breast cancer and colon cancer
have been generally associated with
the level of consumption of animal fat."
ARTHUR
UPTON
Director, National Cancer Institute, Oct. 1979 |
Interestingly, Japanese women who follow Western-style, meat-based diets
are eight times more likely to develop breast cancer
than women who follow a
more traditional plant-based diet.2
Vegetarians also have lower rates
of colon cancer than meat-eaters.1
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"A
low-fat plant-based diet would not only lower
the heart attack rate about 85 percent,
but would lower the cancer rate 60 percent."
WILLIAM
CASTELLI, M.D.
Director, Framingham Health Study;
National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute
|
Animal products are usually
high in fat and always devoid of fiber.
Meat and dairy products
contribute to many forms of cancer,
including cancer of the colon, breast, and prostate.
Colon cancer has been
directly linked to meat consumption.
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Number of
lives lost to colon cancer
each year in the U.S.:
55,000
Risk of colon
cancer for women who eat red meat daily
compared to those who eat it
less than once a month:
250%
greater
Risk of colon
cancer for people who eat red meat once a week
compared to those who
abstain:
38%
greater
Risk of colon
cancer for people who eat poultry once a week
compared to those who
abstain:
55%
greater
Risk of colon
cancer for people who eat poultry four times a week
compared to those
who abstain:
200–300%
greater
Risk of colon
cancer for people who eat
beans, peas or lentils at least twice a week
compared to people who avoid these foods:
50% lower
JOHN
ROBBINS
American author,
Pulitzer Prize Nominee for Diet for a New America,
(excerpt from The Food
Revolution, Conari Press 2000) |
High-fat diets also
encourage the body’s production of estrogens, in particular, estradiol.
Increased levels of this sex hormone have been linked to breast cancer.
One
recent study linked dairy products to an increased risk of ovarian cancer.
The
process of breaking down the lactose (milk sugar) into galactose
evidently
damages the ovaries.3
Vegetarians avoid the animal fat linked to cancer
and get abundant fiber and
vitamins that help to prevent cancer.
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"The
meat-laden, Western style diet, rather than leading us to
an age of prosperity and health, has contributed to a
bankrupting epidemic of degenerative diseases."
MICHAEL
A. KLAPER, M.D.
American author and international lecturer |
In addition,
blood analysis
of vegetarians reveals a higher level of Natural Killer Cells,
specialized white blood cells
that attack cancer cells.4
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1. Phillips RL. Role of lifestyle and dietary habits in risk of cancer
among Seventh-Day Adventists. Cancer Res (Suppl) 1975;35:3513-22.
2. Trichopoulos D, Yen S, Brown J, Cole P, MacMahon B. The effect of
westernization on urine estrogens, frequency of ovulation, and breast cancer
risks:
a study in ethnic Chinese women in the Orient and in the U.S.A. Cancer
1984;53:187-92.
3. Cramer DW, Harlow BL, Willett WC. Galactose consumption and metabolism in
relation to the risk of ovarian cancer. Lancet 1989;2:66-71.
4. Malter M, Schriever G, Eilber U. Natural killer cells, vitamins, and other
blood components of vegetarian and omnivorous men.
Nutr Cancer 1989; 12:271-8.
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