Association of vegetable and fruit intake with gastric cancer risk among Japanese: a pooled analysis of four cohort studies.

​Habitual consumption of fruits and vegetables may contribute positively to the prevention of stomach (gastric) cancer.

This study assessed the role of high dietary ingestion of fruits and vegetables in the prevention of gastric (stomach) cancer. Researchers studied the fruit and vegetable intake of 191,232 subjects and compared the gastric cancer odds ratios of all the subjects in the study population.

Researchers observed a reduced risk of gastric cancer among subjects who consumed the highest amounts of fruits and vegetables compared to their counterparts who were rare-consumers and non-consumers of fruits and vegetables. The anti-carcinogenic effect of fruits and vegetables was found to be more effective for cancers in the distal portions of the stomach in men. The findings of this study show that the risk of developing cancerous cells and tumors in the stomach decreases with increase in the frequency of consumption of fruits and vegetables.