Eating healthy helps prevent cancer development

Adherence to a healthy dietary pattern can help reduce the risk of all cancers, suggests a study. 

A team of investigators searched for meta-analyses of prospective studies from the databases of PubMed, Embase, Web of Science, and Cochrane Library from inception to 22 February 2024. These studies reported an effect size to examine the relationship between dietary pattern and cancer risk. 

The Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development, and Evaluation (GRADE) was used to assess the quality of included studies, and the credibility assessment of evidence was utilized to assess the certainty of available evidence. The outcomes of interest were any incident cancers. 

A total of 74 meta-analyses from 30 articles were identified, of which three (4.1 percent) were deemed as having convincing evidence.  

The three meta-analyses revealed that adherence to the 2007 World Cancer Research Fund/American Institute for Cancer Research (WCRF/AICR) dietary recommendations (per 1-unit score increase) significantly correlated with a lower risk of all cancers (relative risk [RR], 0.93, 95 percent confidence interval [CI], 0.92–0.95). 

In addition, an inverse association was observed between adherence to a prudent diet (RR, 0.89, 95 percent CI, 0.85–0.93) or a vegetable-fruit-soybean diet (RR, 0.87, 95 percent CI, 0.83–0.92) and the risk of breast cancer. 

Credibility assessment of evidence using GRADE showed that four meta-analyses (5.4 percent) were classified as high. These studies observed an association between adherence to the 2007 WCRF/AICR dietary recommendations and reduced risks of all cancer, breast cancer, colorectal cancer, and prostate cancer. 

“These findings suggest that adherence to certain healthy dietary patterns is associated with a lower risk of all cancers and certain individual cancers,” the investigators said.