Monday Nov 23, 2015 (foodconsumer.org) -- A new study published in 2015 in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition suggests eating a vegan diet may significantly lower the risk for prostate cancer.

For the study, researchers analyzed data from 26,346 men of the Adventist Health Study-2 to see how dietary patterns including non-vegetarian, lacto-ovo-vegetarian, semi-vegetarian and vegan diets could affect the risk of prostate cancer.

The study found men who were vegans were 35% less likely to develop prostate cancer than those who followed other dietary patterns.  Of vegan men, white men and black men who followed a vegan diet were 37% and 33% less likely to be diagnosed with prostate cancer respectively.

Yessenia Tantamango-Bartley, Synnove F Knutsen, Raymond Knutsen, Bjarne K Jacobsen, Jing Fan, W Lawrence Beeson, Joan Sabate, David Hadley, Karen Jaceldo-Siegl, Jason Penniecook, Patti Herring, Terry Butler, Hanni Bennett, and Gary Fraser, Are strict vegetarians protected against prostate cancer? 

The Adventist Health Study-2 was supported by the National Institutes of Health, The USDA and the World Cancer Research Fund International.