Vegeterian diet and cancer prevention

A vegetarian diet helps prevent cancer. Studies of vegetarians show that death rates from cancer are only about one-half to three-quarters of those of the general population.Breast cancer rates are dramatically lower in countries where diets are typically plant-based. When people from those
countries adopt a Western, meat-based diet, their rates of breast cancer soar. Vegetarians also have significantly lower rates of colon cancer than meat-eaters. Colon cancer is more closely associated with meat consumption than any other dietary factor.Why do vegetarian diets help protect against cancer? First, they are lower in fat and higher in fiber than meat-based diets. But other factors are important, too. Plants contain other cancer-fighting substances called phytochemicals. For example,vegetarians usually consume more of the plant pigments beta-carotene and lycopene. This might help to explain why
they have less lung and prostate cancer.Also, some studies have suggested that diets that avoid dairy products may reduce the risk of prostate and ovarian cancer.Some of the anti-cancer aspects of a vegetarian diet cannot yet be explained.For example, researchers are not quite sure why vegetarians have more of certain white blood cells, called “natural killer
cells,” which are able to seek out and destroy
cancer cells