Related: Smoking less may reduce lung cancer risk

Fruits, vegetables guard against lung cancer.

    BEIJING, Sep. 28 (Xinhuanet) -- Fruits and vegetables may help lower the risk of lung cancer, a new US study shows.

    Researchers from the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston said they have found evidence that food-derived compounds called phytoestrogens, nonsteroidal substances that weakly mimic estrogen, have a protective effect.

    But there has been little research focused on dietary intake and lung cancer, said the study published in this week's Journal of the American Medical Association.

    "Our main findings were that patients with lung cancer tended to consume lower amounts of phytoestrogens" than healthy people without the disease, said the study.

    In the study, participants whose diets included the most phytoestrogens had a 46% reduction in the risk of lung cancer, said study author Matthew Schabath, Ph.D.

    In a related study published in the same issue researchers at Copenhagen University Hospital in Denmark said heavy smokers -- defined as those who go through more than 15 cigarettes a day -- can reduce their lung cancer risk by cutting back, although the reduction is not proportional.

    "A smoker who cuts back on the number of cigarettes by half reduces the risk of lung cancer not by half, but by 25 percent. So the risk is reduced but not just as much as the number of cigarettes," said Nina Godtfredsen, chief author of the study. Enditem

    (Agencies)