Study warns that being an ‘unhealthy’ vegan could increase women’s risk of breast cancer by 20%

Being vegan can increase your risk of cancer — if you’re unhealthy, one study warns.

Scholars have found that women who follow an unhealthy plant-based diet are up to one-fifth more likely to develop breast cancer than those who eat healthier foods.

This included regular consumption of things like potato chips, sodas, and white rice.

But those who followed a healthy vegan diet rich in fresh fruits and vegetables, legumes, grains and vegetable oils had a 14% lower risk.

Experts said the results show that not all plant-based diets are equal in terms of health benefits.

The project followed 65,000 women over 20 years in France and asked them to complete two nutrition questionnaires during the study.

Eating too much sugar or simple carbohydrates can cause blood sugar spikes that have previously been linked to cancer.

Consuming too much of the aforementioned unhealthy plant foods is a known cause of obesity, which can greatly increase the risk of other cancers.

Researchers from the University of Paris-Saclay presented the results in summary at the Nutrition 2022 Live Online conference. The full methodology has not yet been published.

They provided questionnaires to 65,574 postmenopausal women with an average age of 50 years and tracked cancer diagnosis rates.

Diets have been classified as “healthy” and “unhealthy” plant-based, or healthy or unhealthy animals. Intake of 18 food groups.

This was used to classify the volunteers into five different groups based on how closely they adhered to each eating pattern.

Study author Sanam Shah said: “What’s different about our study is that we were able to unravel the effects of plant food quality on other dietary patterns that were not the focus of previous studies.

“We analyzed food intake comprehensively, taking into account the ‘health’ of food groups, calculating a score between healthy, unhealthy and animal foods”.

Over 21 years, 3,968 people were diagnosed with the disease.

To calculate risk, the researchers compared the odds among those who followed different diets.

People who followed the healthiest plant-based diets were 14% less likely to develop breast cancer than those who went the other way.

Meanwhile, the opposite was true for those who followed an unhealthy plant-based diet.

“These findings highlight that increasing consumption of healthy plant foods and reducing consumption of less healthy plant and animal foods can help prevent all types of breast cancer,” Shad said. said.

He said plant-based diets don’t necessarily mean vegetarian or vegan, but put more emphasis on consuming plant-based foods and other animal foods.

Vegan and vegetarian diets have previously been associated with a lack of enough essential nutrients to keep people healthy.