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Lookup NU author(s): Dr Yashvee DunneramORCiD
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).
© The Author(s) 2024. Background: The associations of vegetarian diets with risks for site-specific cancers have not been estimated reliably due to the low number of vegetarians in previous studies. Therefore, the Cancer Risk in Vegetarians Consortium was established. The aim is to describe and compare the baseline characteristics between non-vegetarian and vegetarian diet groups and between the collaborating studies. Methods: We harmonised individual-level data from 11 prospective cohort studies from Western Europe, North America, South Asia and East Asia. Comparisons of food intakes, sociodemographic and lifestyle factors were made between diet groups and between cohorts using descriptive statistics. Results: 2.3 million participants were included; 66% women and 34% men, with mean ages at recruitment of 57 (SD: 7.8) and 57 (8.6) years, respectively. There were 2.1 million meat eaters, 60,903 poultry eaters, 44,780 pescatarians, 81,165 vegetarians, and 14,167 vegans. Food intake differences between the diet groups varied across the cohorts; for example, fruit and vegetable intakes were generally higher in vegetarians than in meat eaters in all the cohorts except in China. BMI was generally lower in vegetarians, particularly vegans, except for the cohorts in India and China. In general, but with some exceptions, vegetarians were also more likely to be highly educated and physically active and less likely to smoke. In the available resurveys, stability of diet groups was high in all the cohorts except in China. Conclusions: Food intakes and lifestyle factors of both non-vegetarians and vegetarians varied markedly across the individual cohorts, which may be due to differences in both culture and socioeconomic status, as well as differences in questionnaire design. Therefore, care is needed in the interpretation of the impacts of vegetarian diets on cancer risk.
Author(s): Dunneram Y, Lee JY, Watling CZ, Fraser GE, Miles F, Prabhakaran D, Shridhar K, Kondal D, Mohan V, Ali MK, Narayan KMV, Tandon N, Tong TYN, Chiu THT, Lin M-N, Lin C-L, Yang H-C, Liang Y-J, Greenwood DC, Du H, Chen Z, Yu C, Kakkoura MG, Reeves GK, Papier K, Floud S, Sinha R, Liao LM, Loftfield E, Cade JE, Key TJ, Perez-Cornago A
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: BMC Public Health
Year: 2024
Volume: 24
Issue: 1
Online publication date: 02/08/2024
Acceptance date: 20/06/2024
Date deposited: 14/08/2024
ISSN (electronic): 1471-2458
Publisher: BioMed Central Ltd
URL: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-024-19209-y
DOI: 10.1186/s12889-024-19209-y
Data Access Statement: Data described in the manuscript will not be made available because studies pooled by the Cancer Risk in Vegetarians Consortium are not owned by the writing group and so are not available from this consortium. Individual studies may be contacted to request access to their data; the Adventist Health Study office at Loma Linda University for the Adventist Health Study-2; data for CARRS-1 are available through the NHLBI BioLINCC; for CARRS-2, please contact the investigators: Dr KM Venkat Narayan and Dr Dorairaj Prabhakaran; the data access policy for the EPIC-Oxford study is available via the study website; for the Oxford Vegetarian Study please check the study website; the Tzu Chi Health Study data belongs to Health and Welfare Data Center and access to data requires application to Health and Welfare Data Center, Ministry of Health, Taiwan; the UK Women’s Cohort Study data are maintained and stored by the Nutritional Epidemiology Group, University of Leeds.
PubMed id: 39095780
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