Meat-free diet 'reduces risk of developing cancer'

Published on Wednesday 1 July 2009 09:57

A MEAT-FREE diet could reduce the risk of developing cancer, a new study says.

More than 61,000 people were monitored over 12 years by Cancer Research UK scientists from Oxford, who found that vegetarians were 12 per cent less likely to develop cancer than people who ate meat.

The risk was almost halved for cancers of the blood including leukaemia, multiple myeloma and non-Hodgkin lymphoma where vegetarians' risk was 45 per cent lower than meat eaters.