Adhering to a vegetarian diet nearly halves the risk of getting cancer, recent research suggests.
The study involved 61,000 people aged 20-89; it found that those who did not consume meat reduced their possibility of getting the disease by 12%.
There were strikingly fewer cases of cancers of the blood, such as, leukaemia and non-Hodgkin lymphoma, amongst vegetarians; 45% fewer cases were recorded amongst the vegetarians .
Cases of stomach and bladder tumours also occured significantly less amongst the vegetarian group.
Professor Tim Key, a Cancer Research UK epidemiologist from the University of Oxford, stated that in a lifetime a third of people are going to be diagnosed with cancer, that is, 33 out of 100 people.
If people became vegetarian, this figure would come down to 29 out of 100 people getting cancer.
We are already advised to eat five portions of fruit and vegetables daily in order to lower our risk of cancer and other diseases.
