YOUR MOTHER always told you to eat your veggies. Boy, was she smart. Nature is smart too. We have plenty of foods and plants that contain medicinal compounds that squash many diseases. Broccoli, for instance, is loaded with a substance that’s especially deadly to cancer cells. That’s why the broccoli family tops the list of vegetables that prevent cancer.

But given all the known carcinogens in our modern world, you’d have to eat plate after plate of the stuff to counteract the increased risks. That’s impossible.

So you’re going to love this good news: Scientists have identified the compound in broccoli that KOs many types of cancer cells on contact. Its name is indole-3-
carbinol (I-3-C for short). And they’ve been able to extract it from the broccoli plant and concentrate it into an easy-to-take pill.

Eating a vegetarian diet can almost halve the risk of developing cancer, research suggests.

A study of more than 61,000 individuals aged between 20 and 89 found those who did not eat meat reduced overall incidence of the disease by 12 per cent.

But the most striking difference was in cancers of the blood, including leukaemia and non-Hodgkin lymphoma with 45 per cent fewer cases among the vegetarians. 

Research suggests there are 45 per cent fewer cases of leukaemia and non-Hodgkin lymphoma among vegetarians

Tumours of the stomach and bladder were also significantly less frequent in this group.

Professor Tim Key, a Cancer Research UK epidemiologist at the University of Oxford, said: 'Over a lifetime about one in three people will be diagnosed with cancer. So if 33 people in every hundred get cancer this would come down to about 29 with everyone following a vegetarian diet, which is 12 per cent lower.'

However, Mr Key said the findings were not yet strong enough to advise the public to make dramatic changes to the way they eat as long as they are following an 'average balanced diet'.

Although it is widely recommended we eat five portions of fruit and vegetables a day to reduce their risk of cancer and other diseases, there is little evidence looking specifically at a vegetarian diet.

Mr Key, whose findings are published in the British Journal of Cancer, added: 'More research is needed to substantiate these results and to look for reasons for the differences.'

His team followed the participants, just over half of whom were meat eaters, for more than 12 years during which time 3,350 were diagnosed with cancer. They looked at the rates of cancer among the vegetarians, and then compared them with those of the meat eaters.

Mr Key said: 'Our study looking at cancer risk in vegetarians found the likelihood of people developing some cancers is lower among vegetarians than among people who eat meat.

'In terms of what explains this we have to look at what other research is going on. For stomach cancer there is already quite alot of evidence that high intake of food such as processed meat may increase risk.

'Obviously, vegetarians who are not eating meat would not have that risk factor. It could be something about being a vegetarian that is protective, or alternatively it could be something about meat actually increasing the risk.'

Su Taylor, of the Vegetarian Society, said: 'This latest research adds to a growing body of evidence that vegetarians are less likely to get cancer.

'It could be they are simply more likely to stick to the recommended five portions of fruit and vegetables a day, thereby eating more roughage, or it could be more complicated than this.'