Research
Mixed
The protective effect of the Mediterranean diet is significantly stronger for smoking-related cancers than for non-smoking-related cancers.
If you smoke, adopting a Mediterranean diet may offer you greater protection against cancer than if you were a non-smoker, particularly for cancers like lung, bladder, and colorectal. The diet's antioxidants may help counteract the oxidative damage caused by smoking.
GoodQualifiesMEDIUM confidence
The apparent inverse association was stronger for smoking-related cancers than for cancers not known to be related to tobacco (P (heterogeneity) = 0.008).
Why this rating
Large cohort with stratified analysis, but heterogeneity p-value is borderline (0.008) and residual confounding is acknowledged.
Source
Mediterranean dietary pattern and cancer risk in the EPIC cohort
E. Couto et al. · British Journal of Cancer · 2011
DOI 10.1038/bjc.2011.106
cohort · n=478478Cited 289×
Read the paper DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10
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