"Colorectal cancers kill more Americans http than any other cancer except lung cancer but a new study suggests you can reduce your risk of the disease by laying off the cheeseburgers and pastramis and opting for a large salad or broiled salmon instead. After tracking  Americans and Canadians for an average of more than seven years researchers from Loma Linda University found that vegetarians were  less likely than meateaters to be diagnosed with colon cancer or rectal cancer. The results httparchinte.jamanetwork.comarticle.aspxarticleid were published Monday by JAMA Internal Medicine. The study volunteers were all members of the Seventh Day Adventist church which strongly encourages http a vegetarian diet. The church also urges followers to exercise regularly and refrain from smoking drinking or using mindaltering substances. As a result the researchers didnt just compare vegetarians to nonvegetarians. They were also able to assess the relative merits of different types of vegetarian diets. Heres how they stacked up By far the lowest incidence of colorectal cancers was seen in pescovegetarians people who eat fish at least once a month but eschew all other types of meat. Compared to omnivores pescovegetarians were  less likely to be diagnosed with these cancers during the course of the study. Lactoovo vegetarians who eat eggs and dairy foods but not fish or other meats came in second with an  reduced incidence of colorectal cancer. They were followed closely by vegans who dont eat eggs dairy products or any kind of meat who were  less likely to get a colorectal cancer diagnosis. Even semivegetarians who ate meat at least once per month but no more than once per week were  less likely to get colorectal cancer during the study period than nevervegetarians the researchers found. All of these riskreduction calculations were adjusted to account for age gender race education level daily calorie intake exercise habits smoking and drinking behavior family history of colorectal cancer and other medical conditions. The researchers also crunched the numbers separately for colon cancer and rectal cancer. In this analysis being a vegetarian of any type reduced the risk of colon cancer more than rectal cancer. Previous studies have found that eating red meat  especially processed meat  is associated with an increased risk of colorectal cancer and eating fiber is known to reduce the risk. So its not exactly surprising that vegetarians fared better than meateaters in this study. But some of the details remain mysterious. For instance the vegetarians in this study ate fewer foods with refined grains added fats and sugar than their nonvegetarian counterparts. The study authors even said it will take more research to determine whether the pescovegetarians were better off because they ate fish."