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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) 2026.Background: Vegetarian diets might influence cancer risk. Methods: We studied 1,645,555 meat eaters, 57,016 poultry eaters, 42,910 pescatarians, 63,147 vegetarians and 8849 vegans in 9 cohorts (UK, US, Taiwan, India). After a median 16 years follow-up, incident cancers were: 4504 mouth and pharynx, 1308 oesophagus (squamous cell), 2105 oesophagus (adenocarcinoma), 3578 stomach, 30,528 colorectum, 2970 liver, 8030 pancreas, 3077 lung (never smokers), 61,368 breast, 11,220 endometrium, 8076 ovary, 45,946 prostate, 7193 kidney, 6869 bladder, 11,651 non-Hodgkin lymphoma, 4658 multiple myeloma and 7306 leukaemia. Multivariable Cox regression was used to estimate cohort-specific hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs), and the results were combined using meta-analysis. Results: Compared to meat eaters, poultry eaters had lower risk of prostate cancer (0.93, 0.88–0.98), pescatarians had lower risks of colorectal (0.85, 0.77–0.93), breast (0.93, 0.88–0.98) and kidney cancer (0.73, 0.58–0.93), vegetarians had lower risks of cancers of the pancreas (0.79, 0.65–0.97), breast (0.91, 0.86–0.97), prostate (0.88, 0.79–0.97), kidney (0.72, 0.57–0.92) and multiple myeloma (0.69, 0.51–0.93) but higher risk of squamous cell carcinoma of the oesophagus (1.93, 1.30–2.87), and vegans had higher risk of colorectal cancer (1.40, 1.12–1.75). Conclusions: Vegetarian diets might influence risk for several cancers. The generalisability should be considered cautiously.
Author(s): Dunneram Y, Lee JY, Watling CZ, Lawson I, Parsaeian M, Fraser GE, Butler FM, Prabhakaran D, Shridhar K, Kondal D, Mohan V, Ali MK, Narayan KMV, Tandon N, Tong TYN, Travis RC, Chiu THT, Lin M-N, Lin C-L, Yang H-C, Liang Y-J, Greenwood DC, 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: British Journal of Cancer
Year: 2026
Pages: epub ahead of print
Online publication date: 27/02/2026
Acceptance date: 16/12/2025
Date deposited: 09/03/2026
ISSN (print): 0007-0920
ISSN (electronic): 1532-1827
Publisher: Springer Nature
URL: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41416-025-03327-4
DOI: 10.1038/s41416-025-03327-4
Data Access Statement: The individual participant data are owned by the individual participating cohorts and are available to researchers on consent from participating cohorts. Code available through contact with the research team
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