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Surprising Science

Cancer and Veggies

Eating more fruits and vegetables appears to do little to reduce the incidence of cancer -- despite decades of exhortations from the World Health Organization that people do so.

For decades, the World Health Organization has been saying that eating more fruits and vegetables will help reduce the incidence of cancer — but it appears those dietary additions do little. Evidence from multiple studies indicates that the protective effects of these foods against cancer are modest, if they exist at all. Those who receive the greatest relative benefit from this kind of diet were smokers and heavy drinkers, who had a lower risk of getting the kinds of cancers that they are prone to.


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