Colon Cancer: 2 Studies, Vegetarians vs. Non

[DenverGuy]

Two studies, two different results. This is from about 5 years ago. It's odd to me that they have such different results.

UK researchers found that vegetarians had a lower overall cancer rate than meat eaters, but contrary to suggestions from other studies, they found a higher rate of colorectal cancer among the vegetarians than among the meat eaters. For the study they examined EPIC data on 63,550 men and women aged 20 to 89 recruited throughout the UK during the 1990s.
The study was the work of researchers working on the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition-Oxford (EPIC-Oxford) and the findings were published in the online issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition on 11 March.

However, for colorectal cancer, vegetarians showed a 39 per cent higher incidence rate compared with meat eaters.

And then this:

The Adventist Health Study 2 (AHS-2) is a large, prospective, North American cohort trial including 96 354 Seventh-Day Adventist men and women recruited between January 1, 2002, and December 31, 2007.

CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE
Vegetarian diets are associated with an overall lower incidence of colorectal cancers. Pescovegetarians in particular have a much lower risk compared with nonvegetarians. If such associations are causal, they may be important for primary prevention of colorectal cancers.

[Jeremiah]

Not really surprising in my opinion. "Vegetarian" is so nonspecific as to be almost meaningless, so it's not that strange that there would be little correlation in the results. It's entirely possible that the population of "vegetarians" in the British study ate a worse diet than the non-vegetarians. Eating some chicken a few times a week and otherwise eating whole grains and vegetables is far healthier than a vegetarian eating eggs and cheese and pastry and butter day after day.
My point is, when a study is so vague and broad it's basically useless in telling us anything meaningful about diet and cancer.

Additionally, a 39% higher incidence may not even be statistically meaningful in this case. After all, even a 100% higher incidence could mean nothing more than 2 deaths per 1000 people instead of 1 death per thousand people. We have to be careful in interpreting these types of things.

[f1jim]

Defining a "vegetarian" diet is like trying to nail jello to a wall. The shear diversity of choices in this kind of a diet will render most data useless. In my experience people switching to a vegetarian diet many times INCREASE their fat consumption. How can that be?
Examine what most people consume when eating vegetarian and you will have your answer.
Thinking we are eating healthy and eating healthy are two points sometimes quite distant from each other.
Just ask people on the street if olive oil is healthy.
Just ask people on the street if an Impossible burger is healthy.
f1jim

[viv]

I was in the UK two years ago after an absence of many years. I was shocked how much heavier the average person was. Dietary habits too were much changed. Brits love their take-aways or carry-outs, especially popular are Indian and Middle Eastern foods. Many Brits, vegetarians included, think they have died and gone to heaven as the food really is excellent and very flavorsome, however also very rich and full of oil.