Jan. 9, 2024 – Evidence continues to mount showing that eating red meat and drinking alcohol increase the risk of colorectal cancer.
Yet another study – published Wednesday in the journal Nature Communications – has established the association. It showed that women who eat an amount of red meat the size of a deck of cards daily had an 8% increased risk of colorectal cancer. Two daily alcoholic drinks were linked to a 15% increased risk.
But a surprising additional finding indicates a way that women can eat or drink their way toward a reduced risk of those increasingly prevalent bowel diseases: getting enough calcium.
Women who consumed at least 300 milligrams of calcium daily had a 17% reduced risk of colon or rectal cancers over 16 years. That amount of calcium is the equivalent to a large glass of milk, and the protective benefits were also observed among women who got their calcium from non-dairy sources such as leafy green vegetables.
However, sourcing the nutrient from cheese or ice cream wasn’t associated with the same reduced risk. The researchers were not able to examine whether taking a calcium supplement provided the same benefits.
“This is the most comprehensive single study ever conducted into the relationship between diet and bowel cancer, and it highlights the potential protective role of calcium in the development of this disease,” said Keren Papier, PhD, a nutritional epidemiologist at the University of Oxford and lead researcher of the study, in a news release.
For the study, researchers analyzed dietary survey data from more than 500,000 women in England and Scotland and then linked those women to databases that document cases of colon and rectal cancers. Statistical modeling looked for relationships between the cancers and 62 foods and nutrients.
Calcium can bind to bile acids and free fatty acids inside the colon, which may lower potentially carcinogenic effects, the researchers noted. Papier likened the binding effect to the formation of harmless “soap,” which can make it easier for the gut to clean out bile and fatty acids instead of allowing them to build up and cause damage. Another theory is that calcium changes the permeability of the colon, reducing the risk of injury or damage from the contents that pass through this important organ where water and nutrients from partially digested food are absorbed into the body.
Colorectal cancer has been on the rise in the U.S., particularly among younger people. In 2024, there were an estimated 106,590 new colon cancer cases and 46,220 new rectal cancer cases, according the American Cancer Society.
