To clarify, it’s specifically squamous-cell carcinoma, not all esophaheal cancers. SCC is, however, the most common form of head/neck cancer by a mile.
As discussed above, the higher risks we observed for squamous cell carcinoma of the oesophagus in vegetarians, and for colorectal cancer in vegans [“although the number of cases among vegans was small”], might be due to a higher prevalence of inadequate intakes of some nutrients in these groups within the populations studied.
If so, that’s a highly preventable problem. Vegan/vegetarian diets have higher risks of certain nutritional deficiencies (and lower of others), but it’s not especially hard to have a balanced diet.
That is: if you’re doing it for health, the “fix” should already be baked-in.
Edit: Forgot to mention for anyone looking for resources about vegetarian/plant-based dieting for health, “whole foods plant-based” (WFPBD) is what you’ll want to be looking into. That’s where the major health benefits are.
To add to that: A majority of head and neck cancers are caused by HPV.
The authors note possible additional factors to diet. I wonder whether HPV vaccination may be loosely inversely correlated with vegetarianism (geographical/socio-economic/healthcare system differences etc.).
One thing I would’ve initially speculated but apparently had wrong was dietary acid, which is actually lower in plant-based diets. The other would be possibly volume of food (lower caloric density), but overall, I’m willing to take the authors’ speculation as-is, as I’m sure they tried to find any relevant data when speculating about causality – much more thoroughly and knowledgeably than I could hope to.
To clarify, it’s specifically squamous-cell carcinoma, not all esophaheal cancers. SCC is, however, the most common form of head/neck cancer by a mile.
As the study notes, though:
If so, that’s a highly preventable problem. Vegan/vegetarian diets have higher risks of certain nutritional deficiencies (and lower of others), but it’s not especially hard to have a balanced diet.
That is: if you’re doing it for health, the “fix” should already be baked-in.
Edit: Forgot to mention for anyone looking for resources about vegetarian/plant-based dieting for health, “whole foods plant-based” (WFPBD) is what you’ll want to be looking into. That’s where the major health benefits are.
To add to that: A majority of head and neck cancers are caused by HPV.
The authors note possible additional factors to diet. I wonder whether HPV vaccination may be loosely inversely correlated with vegetarianism (geographical/socio-economic/healthcare system differences etc.).
One thing I would’ve initially speculated but apparently had wrong was dietary acid, which is actually lower in plant-based diets. The other would be possibly volume of food (lower caloric density), but overall, I’m willing to take the authors’ speculation as-is, as I’m sure they tried to find any relevant data when speculating about causality – much more thoroughly and knowledgeably than I could hope to.
Last time I took some dietary acid, I was laying in bed for the next 16 hours.