Does a plant based diet actually decrease the risk of colorectal cancer?

Abstract

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is the third most prevalent cancer (World Cancer Research Fund/American Institute for Cancer Research; Bray et al., 2018) and the second leading cause of cancer mortality worldwide (World Health Organisation). There are various lifestyle and dietary risk factors for CRC. Diet is the most influential risk factor for CRC other than increasing age, particularly over the age of 50 (Baena & Salinas, 2015); male gender; and genetic predispositions (Brenner et al., 2014). CRC is therefore a threat to public health especially due to increased unhealthy diets rich in meat, processed foods, cholesterol and fat. In fact, CRC incidence is higher in developed countries in comparison with less developed countries (Bishehsari et al., 2014), as studies have shown that a more westernised lifestyle leads to a higher prevalence of CRC (Carroll et al., 2014). A European study was carried out which involved 347,237 participants who were followed up for 12 years, which led to the conclusion that a decrease in CRC risk can be obtained through the implementation of lifestyle changes such as increased exercise, maintaining a healthy body mass index (BMI), little to no smoking or alcohol intake, and a healthy diet, rich in fibre and low in processed and red meats (Aleksandrova et al., 2014). Implementing various of these lifestyle changes led to the largest decrease in CRC risk.