Children who eat lots of chicken are less likely to develop bowel cancer later in life First study to show bowel cancer risk later in life can be influenced by the type of meat eaten as a teenager Study tracked 20,000 women from the early 1990s Chicken-rich diet appears to protect against developing adenomas - precursors for developing bowel cancer Teenagers who regularly eat chicken are less likely to develop bowel cancer when they get older, new research shows. Scientists found poultry reduced adolescents" risk of a bowel tumour by around 20 per cent and cancer of the rectum by up to 50 per cent. The research, by experts at Harvard University School of Public Health in Boston, U.S., shows chicken appears to reduce the development of adenomas, harmful growths which are a precursor to cancer. Healthy option: A childhood diet rich in chicken has shown to correlate with a lower risk of developing bowel cancer later in life The study is the first to show that bowel cancer risk later in life can be influenced by the type of meat eaten as a teenager. More than 40,000 people a year in the UK are diagnosed with bowel cancer. The disease has a high mortality rate - around 16,000 a year - because many victims ignore early warning signs and only seek medical help once the cancer has advanced. Diets high in fat and red meat, as well as lack of exercise, are thought to be among the main risk factors. Researchers wanted to see if meat consumption relatively early in life had any impact on cancer risk decades later. This is because the development of bowel cancer is a slow process that can take several decades. They tracked nearly 20,000 women who took part in a long-running research project called the Nurses" Health Study 2, which began back in the late nineties. Scientists found poultry reduced adolescents¿ risk of a bowel tumour by around 20 per cent and cancer of the rectum by up to 50 per cent At the start of the study, all the women had given details of dietary habits during childhood and adolescence. They were then monitored to see how many over the following decade were diagnosed with adenomas. The results, published online in the American Journal of Epidemiology, showed that women who ate the most chicken during their teenage years were the least likely to have the pre-cancerous growths. However, the researchers also found those that ate the most red meat were no more likely to get cancer than those who consumed the least, while eating fish did not appear to have a protective effect. Although the study was confined to women, it's likely that the findings apply to both sexes. Researchers admitted there is no obvious explanation for why poultry appears to have a protective effect and said the findings could be skewed by the fact they relied on women remembering what they had eaten years earlier. In a report on their findings they said: "There is no well-established plausible mechanism to explain it. But it is possible that poultry intake during adolescence is simply a marker of a healthy diet or lifestyle that may track through the course of life.