Garden, Eat Salad to Reduce Lung Cancer Risk

Score another one for good old-fashioned diet and exercise: Eating four or more servings of green salad a week, and working in the garden once or twice a week, can substantially reduce your risk of developing lung cancer, whether you're a smoker or a nonsmoker, according to researchers at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center.

The ongoing lung-cancer study involves more than 3,800 participants, including former and current smokers, as well as folks who have never lit up in their lives. But why salads and gardening? "Salad is a marker for the consumption of many vegetables," says Michele Forman, Ph.D., lead author of the study and a professor in M. D. Anderson's Department of Epidemiology, in a press release, "and gardening is an activity in which smokers and nonsmokers can participate."

For never smokers, participants who ate three or fewer servings of green salad per week had an odds ratio for lung cancer of 2.09, compared with those who ate at least four servings per week. Similar results were seen in former smokers. Current smokers who ate three or fewer salad servings per week had an odds ratio for lung cancer of 2.73, compared with their counterparts who ate at least four servings per week.

Gardening-wise, among never smokers and former smokers, participants who worked in a garden once or twice a week were 40 percent to 46 percent less likely to develop lung cancer than those who didn't garden at all. Likewise, current smokers who gardened once or twice a week saw a lung-cancer risk reduction of 33 percent to 45 percent, compared with those who didn't garden at all.

"This finding is exciting," Forman notes, "because not only is it applicable to everyone, but it also may have a positive impact on the 15 percent of non-smokers who develop lung cancer." ::MedWire News

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